The Heart of War (66 page)

“Shut up!” Aphrodite shrieked at Alena, her face red with anger and insult as a chair was roughly shoved under her divine butt and the chains at her wrists hauled back over the top of her head and then fastened to a second set of chains fastened to the solid stone wall.

Alena cast her eyes at the half-man half-stag staring back at her. “You’re going to kill her, aren’t you?”

“Not just yet,” Cernunnos intoned as he swaggered over to the cell where Alena and her mother were captive. “What a lovely little reunion. Didn’t I promise it to you…my Daughter?” He reached between the bars with his fingertips and grabbed Alena by her aching jaw. “I didn’t lie, did I?”

“Daughter?” Alena muttered and tried to pull away from his hold but as she did, she felt her wounded delicate jaw begin to give the rest of the way and turned her face back to look at the Great Horned God.

“Why haven’t you told her, Mae? Still don’t feel as though you’re good enough to claim your place in my lines?” Cernunnos asked the older woman coming forward in defense of her daughter.

“No,” Mae countered although she knew she should not. “I didn’t want to tell her how you raped her grandmother and made her in live in shame the remaining years of her short life.”

“Yes, it’s true, Morrowind didn’t live long after Maven’s birth, only…what was it, Mae? Four or five years?” he taunted, knowing what Mae did, that he killed Morrowind when she began to demand that Cernunnos do the right thing and take care of his daughter. Leaving Mae to be raised by the Feys in her little village and to be dependent upon them for everything. “I’m her Father and that makes me your Grandfather, little Maggie,” he whispered with eyes alight. “My Wife.” He saw as well as felt her cringe at his words, one hand dropped to her stomach to hold back the heave threatening to usher forth.

“Get away from her, you wretched excuse for a Father,” Mae screeched as she grabbed hold of his wrist and pried it away from Maggie’s face. “Haven’t you done enough?”

“Hardly,” he said in a threatening tone and then turned back to the Druids who had finished harnessing Aphrodite in place. “Open it up, get them out of there. Bring them up to the Great Hall,” he commanded.

Mother and daughter were led past the Goddess of Love in chains and she was shrieking and wailing for herself; she was tired, hungry, and thirsty, her arms hurt. Both Mae and Alena looked back at Aphrodite with disgust.

“What shall we do with that one, my Lord?” one of the Druids asked impatiently.

Cernunnos seemed to consider the answer for a moment but it was only for show. “Whatever you want, she’s all yours.”

3

Grandfather? Oh, this was disgusting!

It just got worse and worse. Alena wondered why her mother never told her about this. For a moment, as the Druids led them in chains into the Great Hall, Alena was very angry with Mae. Then her injured gray eyes took in a graver sight. Cernunnos set up an altar in here and on it were all of the colorful crystal bottles she’d caught sight of so long ago. In fact, it seemed that there were even more of them all spread out on a marble altar in four very straight neat rows. Silently sitting there, the light from the torches burning around the room bounced off the crystal and threw prisms into the air; they landed on the walls and the ceiling to give the room a magickal air.

“What do you want?” Alena, still naked and weeping blood from several wounds, asked as she tried to stay strong.

“You are going to endow me with the Power of all the Gods trapped in these bottles. You will do it now or I will kill your mother before your eyes.” There was no emotion in his voice; it was cold and flat as a frozen lake.

Alena glanced over her shoulder at her mother standing next to her. Cernunnos wanted her to choose between her mother and her Lover. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Let me make myself clearer,” Cernunnos said in that same monotone as he cleared his throat. “I will start with your mother and then I will show you just how the Pear of Anguish works and you will know how it got its name.”

“At this point, I should think death would be a release for my mother no matter how it finds her. Wouldn’t you agree?” Behind Alena, Mae let out a gasp that Alena did not allow to visibly faze her. “What are you going to do for me?” she whispered as she held his gaze; she did not flinch, cringe, or otherwise show any sign of reaction.

“I see you’ve learned a lot out there in the Mortal World.” He tried to gauge her by gazing deeply into those bloody, battered gray eyes but saw nothing but steel reflected back at him. “I wonder if you really are so ready to sacrifice this way.”

It was Alena’s turn to lean forward and gauge him. “You have no idea what I have learned and what I have sacrificed, Grandpa. If I have to give her life to win this war then that’s the way it has to be.” The lie was a bold one and she could only pray that she was covering it well

Not liking the feeling that she was herding him into a corner, Cernunnos’ sharp eyes narrowed on her. “You shouldn’t toy with me, Maggie. You know what I can do.”

“Give it your best shot. I can’t conduct a ritual for you if I’m dead.”

“What’s wrong with you? Are you insane?” As Ares had done when she first landed on his island, Cernunnos took a great sniff of the air surrounding her, trying to decide if he detected any sign of defect or disease. There was none. “Your time out there,” he hitched his head and his great horns toward the window, “it’s fried your mind? Is that it?” Long before this point, most of his captives were on their knees, begging, crying, sobbing, pleading for their lives, and telling them that they would do anything he wanted. What made her so damn brave?

This stopped here. This stopped now. Two hundred years of being on the run, Alena was sick of it. This seemed the perfect All or Nothing Moment. She wanted a life to call her own, a life free of Cernunnos and if she could not have it then she would rather be dead. “My sheer, utter, unabashed hatred for you,” Alena said, leaning a little closer to him. “You’ve taken everything that was not yours to take; my father, my mother, all of my people, you even took my freedom and my youth, but I won’t let you take my soul. There is nothing left for you, you have taken all you can and
squandered
it. You hold no cards. No power, no matter what you believe, you have never had less power in your whole rotten life.”

Standing in the background, quiet, listening, watching, even Mae had to wonder if her daughter was insane. Surely, no one else in Maggie’s situation would ever see things from such a unique perspective. She wished the perspective didn’t put her own life in mortal jeopardy but Maggie was right. They had both been prisoners of Cernunnos for far too long and one way or another it was time to bring this to an end for all of them.

Cernunnos had enough; he’d reached the end of his tolerance and his patience for this little game of Maggie’s. “Grab her!” he shouted to the Druids and pointed at Mae, who was promptly seized by both arms and held firmly in place. “Strip her bare!” The Great Horned God leaned forward once more to meet his little Maggie eye-to-eye. “Let’s see if you can back up your words, Maggie. Let’s see how strong you are when she’s screaming.” In his hand appeared a heavy bullwhip complete with sharp metal tip.

“Put it away,” Alena ordered while her mother was stripped of the new clean clothing she had just been given and then made to stand up against the wall with her back to the room.

Done indulging Maggie, Cernunnos ignored her words as he came out from the other side of the table to stand her and began flicking the whip to snap it in the air. “Consent now and she doesn’t have to feel its sting.”

“I said, put it away,” Alena hissed. “I’m done with you.”

“You? You are done with me? Who do you think you are, Maggie?” With his gaze still affixed to hers, Cernunnos let the whip fly and slap against Mae’s bare back, a back which bore the scars of events past similar to this one. When Mae screamed out in pain, he watched in amazement as Maggie’s upper lip curl into a sneer. Thinking he would teach her a harsh lesson, he pulled his arm and the whip back once again to let it fly. This time he took his eyes off Maggie so he could keep them on his target and make the lash really count. Just as he began snapping his wrist forward, he heard a most unsettling sound.

Breaking glass.

Alena skirted to the other side of the table while his eyes were turned and the two Druids were busy making sure Mae stayed in place. Making good on her threat, she grabbed up one of the heavy candelabras on the altar and brought it down, flaming candles and all, on top of the crystal jars lined up neatly and waiting to have their contents integrated into the Great Horned God. Four of the decorative jars smashed to bits and small balls of light rose into the air, one from each jar, they hovered over the altar for a moment as if they were staring at Alena before they dashed to the open window and freedom. The dome was no barrier for them; they simply floated right through it.

“NO!” Cernunnos thundered as he watched the souls fly away. “Artemis!” Then something else caught his eye; the wide cold grin on Alena’s face. It was easy to see her wicked deed pleased her and the fact that she had done what Ares’ wanted pleased her even more. In great anger, he thrust his arm out in front of his body and tossed of bolt of energy that hit Alena square in the abdomen. It knocked her off her feet before taking her for a whirlwind ride through the air. “You bitch! You’re more trouble than you’re worth!”

At the sound of the breaking glass and the commotion, the guards let their attentions drop from Mae and she charged at her Father’s back. “Stop it, Father! Leave my daughter alone!” The old Fey pounced upon Cernunnos’ back and began punching him.

The Great Horned God let out a roar as he shook Mae off his back and she fell to the floor. His face, gnarled with anger, turned to Alena who was on the floor trying to recover from the blow. He raised his hoof and brought it down hard upon Mae’s head without breaking his stare. Mae’s head split open like a ripe melon, her brains and blood spilled out onto the floor as her body twitched for but a single moment and then she lay still evermore. “Whore.”

“MAMA!” Alena screamed and stretched her arm out in the direction of her already dead mother. Gray eyes welling with tears and stomach turning so hard, she was certain she would throw up, suddenly her swollen face and aching jaw were in a vice grip as Cernunnos turned her to look at him with no space between them.

“Whore’s daughter,” he hissed. “You’re not good enough to bear
my
seed.” The Great Horned God cocked back his fist to strike her.

4

Ares materialized several hundred yards away from Cernunnos’ fortress high upon a hilltop looking down only to see it protected by the force field in the shape of dome much like the one Adrian used to shield himself with during the battle on the beach. He could not teleport through the walls and since Cernunnos was aware that Ares knew of the tunnels, Ares thought they were guarded Druids.

Alena was in there…somewhere. Even from this distance, Ares could feel her and what he felt was not good. He couldn’t hear her thoughts or connect with her mind but he felt her presence; the impression he received was one of exhaustion, still defiant, but near defeat. “Don’t give up, Alena,” Ares whispered to the sky. “I’m here. I’m coming.”

Beneath the dome, inside the walls of the fortress several torches burned to light up the courtyard and expose anyone wandering about. Ares heard the barking of dogs that sounded hungry and ready to tear flesh from bone the first chance they received at a meal. He looked to the small buildings Alena told him of earlier and they were dark. No lights. No torches. That did not mean Druids did not lurk inside them ready to pounce in ambush.

The tower, the inner fortress lit up both from without and within. Two huge rows of torches burned around the perimeter turning the night to near day for three hundred yards around it. Windows in the building were few and were just as Alena had drawn them for him. The circular tower had four floors, each with four windows one to each of the four directions. Other than that, it was solid stone. Cernunnos’ bedroom was at the top but his Great Hall was on the main floor. The window there burned brightly with light, brighter than the others around it.

In the light of the full moon, Ares turned his gaze to those torches burning around the base of the tower and the smoke rising from them. He followed the stream upward to the top of the dome where it did not stop but rather wafted through. Air and smoke could come and go as they pleased so as not to taint the environment the dome was to protect.

It had been a very long time since Ares conjured up a firestorm. As he stood on the hilltop, his dark eyes rolled back in his head so that only the whites were visible, the sky began to darken and the wind to howl. All around him deer, bear, rabbit, squirrel, wolf, side-by-side predator-to-prey, began slinking away from the Danger Zone.

The moonlit sky suddenly flared like a blazing sunset as fire rained down from it and as it sprang up from the bowels of the Earth itself in massive eruptions that rocked the ground until flames engulfed the entire circumference of the Fortress. The wind blew at gale force from all sides, feeding the flames until they converged in a whirlwind. The fire leapt higher and the smoke began to billow in the direction of the dome as it was sucked to the center by the centrifugal force of the charging winds.

Opening his eyes to take in the scene as he felt the raging flood of the battle rip through him, Ares looked down at the scene. As the smoke flooded in, the Druids scrambled to the walls to defend the Fortress from the invader. It was a foolish mistake, one easily made by those trained in magick but not in combat.

The smoke wrapped around the guards on the walls even as they fled their posts in search of clean air below. The guards began to scream when the smoke followed them with a mind of its own. It chased them off their walls and into the courtyard, descending down to the ground rather than wafting up to the top of the dome. Ares watched with a cold smile as the guards hurried to hurl magick spells at the smoke, probably hoping to disperse it, but all of their energy bolts simply went right through the attacking smoke. The closer to the dome they were when their staffs discharged the more damage they did to it from the inside until it began to crack like glass. The staffs continued their wild discharges even as the smoke enveloped the men, bringing them down to the ground, their hands around their own throats as they gasped for air and found nothing but thick black smoke to fill their lungs.