Medusa: Fate's Game Ch. 12

Otrera laughed. Over the chaos and screams of dying felines, Queen Otrera's laughter overtook it all.

"Revenge, you murdering bastard."

She charged, sword and shield at the ready. Medusa had to duck her head left and right to see past the legs that blocked her view, but the Amazon's approach was unmistakable. Where everyone else was hesitating, she was sprinting forth with the speed of a Fate's Child. And Darian was right next to her.

"Bellerophontes!?"

Darian ran up to Chimera, and as he got near, he sliced into nearby felines while running by. It was only once Darian joined the chaos that the black guards rushed forward, shields up and spears out. A phalanx. They moved as a wall, covering the bridge from edge to edge, the sound of their sandals in perfect unison.

There were no more cats. In the surprise, Chimera had ripped them to shreds. Literally. Bits of their bodies were strewn about, their tails severed, jaws and heads torn asunder, and blood everywhere. The crowd was awestruck — so was Medusa. She gasped and bit a knuckle as Chimera stood among the once mighty manticore, covered in blood and cuts, gashes as long as his limbs, but all meaningless against his might. She'd never seen him so... unfettered.

But the phalanx was approaching. Perseus, still sitting on Pegasus's back, started to back up, but the phalanx was behind him. Or at least it was. The mighty hero turned and fled, with the loud crack of hooves against the wood. But when he jumped over the guards, he didn't land. Pegasus spread his enormous wings and took to the sky.

"Medusa! Shoot him down!"

Well, no point in hiding anymore. She stood up, drew her bow, and blinked at Darian.

"W-what?"

"Shoot him down! Try and get him in the wing, but shoot him down! We can't have Andromeda escape!"

"B-b-but he might die!"

"Do it!" Darian turned to face the oncoming guards. They raised their shields, shoulder to the shoulder of their right companion, and spears between barriers. A wall, perfectly formed, with no gaps and only spear tips to greet them.

At least until Chimera charged into it. The giant did not care about the spears stabbing into his stone body, his arms and legs and belly; twigs compared to the size of him, and he roared until the mountain shook as he crashed into the wall of shields. The soldiers flew back, weightless, and rolled over themselves as they landed. Beside the beast, Otrera and Darian charged onto the recovering soldiers — out of the way of Chimera's rampage thankfully — and started to cut.

Medusa gulped and forced herself to look away from the attack. Pegasus. She had to shoot Pegasus. It seemed an eternity, but only a few seconds had passed, and Perseus was already almost fifty feet into the air. In the bright night sky, Pegasus was a clear target, and he'd yet to gain any speed. His wings were so huge! Colossal, they put any bird to shame.

She aimed one of her arrows, drew the bow until her muscle started to strain, and fired.

The arrow shot through the sky, a glint of its metal a crack of lightning as it pierced Pegasus's wing. Pierce was an understatement! The first thing she'd ever truly shot with the bow, the first living creature, and the arrow put a hole through it. Where there were huge feathers and a grand display of majestic white, Medusa could see the night and mountainside through.

Pegasus fell. A mix of roar and neigh filled the air, and he crashed onto his side, Perseus along with him. He landed a ways up the mountain path, not so far Medusa couldn't see him though. She looked to Darian again, hands shaking, snake hair flat to her scalp. She shot his friend.

And she could shoot him again. He wasn't so far the magical bow could not reach him. She waited for Darian's command.

Command turned into battle cry. Chimera and the two Fate's Children pushed into the guards, and the sound of swords and spears against shields filled the air, until all anyone could hear was Chimera's roars, and battle.

"Now!" Otrera said. "Charge!"

The mob rushed in. The sound of hundreds of people running was louder than thunder. All around her, people poured, yelled, roared their own little roars, and charged at the destroyed phalanx. The obsidian guards were many, but not as many as the mob, and they struggled to get back to their feet as Chimera charged through the layers of their numbers.

In a perfect unison, Otrera and Darian ran beside him, a little ways behind him. They caught the broken tide as their shields fell, and their swords cut into their onyx skin. And those that did not fall, or were not caught in the initial charge, were met with the mob. Hundreds of swords and torches, raised and crashing down in a mess. While Darian and Otrera breathed the flow of combat, until watching them made Medusa almost envious of their dance, the riot was like watching river rapids. These people didn't know how to fight, the just jumped onto the guards and started to cut and bash.

But it worked. Medusa stood tall, well over the crowd, and aimed her bow down onto the mess of the bridge before her. It was chaos, but at least it was chaos controlled. Chimera and the Fate's Children were at the other end of the bridge already, and from where she stood, Medusa could see guards being thrown into the air as the giant tore through them.

She moved forward with the crowd. She was easy to see, easy to use as a land mark, and the crowd moved with her. And as she moved onto the bridge, the remains of the onyx guards came into a better light.

So close, the onyx skin of the guards melted away. All that was left was bone.

Skeletons! As more of the guards came into close proximity, whatever blackness covered their skin peeled away under the light of a hundred torches. Glowing red eyes continued, but instead of a deep obsidian that hid all within, she could see the white of their skulls, the cracks of their old teeth, and the spine of the neck.

"The undead!"

"The sorceress has raised the dead!"

Medusa waved her hands around at the people about her. "We have fought these before! Break them apart into pieces, and they are undone!" she said. For a moment, she wasn't sure who was talking.

As if she summoned an army of lumberjacks, the crowd evolved, and where before they were stabbing, now they were chopping.

She raised her bow, drew an arrow tight, and unleashed the mighty slab of metal. The large, shining tip tore through one of the nearby skeletons, and from her angle above, it drilled the undead into the wood of the bridge. Its breastplate opened at the center, blown open, as if a god himself had punched a hole into its chest. And the skeleton wasn't pinned as she planned; rather, the undead thing was left without a torso to connect its limbs.

She blinked down at the bow in her hands. If Otrera had hit Darian with this from this close, outside Tiryns, he'd have lost his arm!

Screams. She aimed to the left, arrow drawn before she knew it, and unleashed another arrow. It tore through the helmet of another skeleton, but the creature already had its spear in someone's belly. Gurgled cries of pain joined the roar of the mob, and the headless skeleton ripped its spear from its victim, only to stab at someone else.

Patrius jumped in, shield up, and caught the spear with it in a spin. Sword out, he brought it down at the end of the spin, through the skeleton's spear arm. He dug his foot in, lunged in close until his shoulder was against the thing's chest, and swung his sword back up, through the other arm.

Headless, armless, the undead floundered helplessly as Patrius kicked it over.

Getting in close like that, she'd seen that before. Darian had done that, to the second soldier he'd killed the first time they met. Shivers worked through her, but she shook her head and focused.

Another arrow, and another. The crowd moved behind the three that speared the assault, and waved torches around with each of the undead they felled. Many took to using the torches as weapons instead, and jammed the fire sticks into the faces and arms of the skeletons, but quickly learned that bones do not burn easily. It did not deter the mob, and they cut into the overwhelmed undead like an army of ants with blades.

Medusa looked past them to the cliff. Perseus was getting up. He didn't have his huge shield this time, and if Medusa lined up another shot, she was sure she might be able to hit him. But he was quick to get back onto the wounded horse's back. She couldn't shoot Pegasus again, she couldn't! Darian didn't ask her to shoot twice, and she wasn't going to. All she could do was watch as Perseus drove his heels into Pegasus, and sent the horse galloping up the mountain.

He wouldn't be flying, but he was getting away to warn Andromeda. But unless the sorceress had some way to leave the island without Pegasus, and quickly at that, they were coming for her.

They were coming for her. Medusa felt a buzz work through her as the words danced across her mind. They were coming for her. They were on the offensive, and their plan was working. She'd never known the feeling before, the thrill of a battle going in her favor, of a plan succeeding. Don't get too excited, you're not done yet. But still, as the mob pushed the guards down, chopped them into bits, and rolled their severed torsos into the sea, she couldn't help it. They were going to win!

She shook her head again. What would Darian say? Or worse, what would Otrera say? The Amazon would smack her for being so naive. Focus! She lined up another arrow, and shot down another one of the guards that Otrera and Darian had let slip by. And another. She got faster, timed the shots with her breathing, and kept drawing arrows. No need to worry about wasting them, they were infinite. And no need to worry about lining up the shot, she was fast enough to take each one and make it land. She really was a good shot.

It was easier for her to focus on hitting the skeletal guards, and ignore the wounded around her. The mob were mostly without armor, and the few that were had led the charge. Many were lying on the bridge, hands around their arms or stomachs, groaning and coughing a mess of blood and agony. Some were women, and their cries brought her to a standstill. For a brief second, she wondered how much of a hypocrite that made her, wincing more over the wounded women than the men?

A cry snapped her back to reality. One of the skeletons jumped up from the bridge floor using its arms — someone had cut off its legs and took its spear — and threw itself onto a nearby man. Tritus! She couldn't shoot it, she'd hit him too. But, he was close enough, and she snapped out her tail. It cracked against the skeleton's side hard enough to shatter it inside its breastplate. A couple inches lower and she'd have hit Tritus in the face, and killed him.

She smiled down at him, slithered over to him, and pulled the man back to standing.

"The battle goes well," she said, and she drew another arrow as she started to slither along with the crowd. No need to compensate for walking, she was able to line up a shot as her snake half moved her forward. Chimera and the others had already reached the end of the bridge, and were clearing it of the remaining guards. Nearby, some of the mob were rescuing the injured. Thank the gods.

Tritus fell in beside her, a nod and smile on his bloodied face. "We just needed the push."

Their push came to a halt when a flash of lightning lit up the sky. Thunder ripped through them, and many stumbled as it shook the air and ground alike. Medusa gasped, and aimed high.

A new light appeared at the top of the cliff, at the edge where the acropolis peeked over to look down upon them. Andromeda. Why could Medusa see her so clearly? High above them, small enough and far enough Medusa had no hope of hitting her with an arrow, and yet, the woman stood clear against the night sky, wearing a flowing robe of white, and holding a white staff.

"You will all suffer for this," Andromeda said. Otrera had mentioned Andromeda was a cold woman. Medusa could feel the ice in her voice as if the woman was speaking over her shoulder. Sorcery. "And Otrera. You betray me? After all I've done you for?"

Otrera raised her sword and pointed it up to the sorceress. "You deceived me! Tricked me! These people do not deserve to die!"

Andromeda slammed her staff down, the base of it cracking against the stone she stood upon. Lightning ripped the sky in tandem, and thunder buried the riot's voice, just a murmur in comparison.

"You bring a swarm of insects to my door, and hope to do battle?" A dead moment of broken hope hung in the air, and Andromeda snatched it as she raised her staff high. "So be it."

Little dots of red started to appear at the top of the cliff next to Andromeda, and more. And more. More until the it looked like a swarm of fireflies covered the sky.

The red dots started to pour down over the cliff to meet them, each a pair. Each a set of eyes.