The Last Demigod Ch. 01

"How did that happen?"

"The boundaries of gods don't work as simply as the boundaries of man."

"Of course they don't."

She smirked. "Have faith, nephew." She walked over to him and placed a hand on top of his short-cropped brown hair. "I do know where one Olympian resides."

"Great, let's start there! Who is he?"

"His name is Heracles."

-

"STOP THEM!" Apollo commanded. He reached back and pulled an arrow from his quiver, set it against his bowstring, and pulled.

Across the great plain stood the colossal man armed with an enormous sickle blade. He stood the height of four, maybe five men.

"My lord, Apollo, we cannot defeat him," cried out a soldier. He appeared to be human.

"Remain steadfast, Laomedon. You will not fall today."

The young soldier nodded as he charged with his brigade in tow.

Apollo loosed another arrow. It whistled loudly as it soared through the sky and entered the shoulder of the colossal man. The surrounding soldiers advanced and began to slash and cut at the man, but his skin seemed highly resistance to their metal. The giant's skin responded to their weapons as armor.

Zeus stepped to his son's side as well as another man. He was clad in thick black leather armor, with a longsword sheathed to his side and an axe strapped to his back.

"It seems we missed the fun, father," the man in black said.

"The fun's not over yet, brother," Apollo answered.

"Ares, come with me. It's time we put your grandfather back where he belongs."

Anthony opened his eyes and found himself looking at the horn and reins of his horse saddle. He threw his head up.

"You OK?" Artemis asked.

"Must've dozed off. Sorry," he replied.

"No worries, we're almost there."

There was something calming about the clattering of the horses' hooves on the crackled old asphalt.

"I still remember seeing this road packed with hundreds of cars. I absolutely loved the ingenuity of mankind," she said.

"I've only read about them."

"It must be strange to see how they are in pictures and how they are now. They're just shells of what was such a great invention."

He didn't know what to say. The world he lived in was much different than the world he has read of. People back then had a myriad of choices. Life was more complex. Now, it's simply live and let live. He remembered hearing stories from the older people in the group that he had grew up with. They spoke of how people used to kill each other for every reason imaginable. What was so confusing about it was that he couldn't imagine a world where people killed each other for any reason.

"What are you thinking about?" she asked.

"Why people used to kill each other."

"A tale almost as old as time. What were you dreaming of?"

"How'd you know?" he wiped the sweat from his forehead.

"You were mumbling. What is a bad dream?"

"No... yes... well, I'm not sure. I wasn't even in the dream. I was watching something happen. It felt more like a memory than anything."

She slowly nodded her head as their horses continued to walk on the old highway.

"What is it?" he asked.

"It's been said that Demigods are cursed with visions of their godly parents' past." She seemed to want to say something else, but remained quiet.

He cleared his throat, uncomforted by the silence before asking, "Do you have any children?"

The uncomfortable silence remained between the two for a few moments before she finally replied, "No." She then quickly added, "We're here." She pointed towards a village similar to Dion.

There were hundreds of small white houses with short, sloped red clay rooftops. Most of the homes looked abandoned and riddled with holes.

"Heracles is here?" he asked.

She nodded while she kept her gaze fixed on the empty village. "My brother always favored small villages as opposed to the large cities."

"Why?"

"He lived during an age of many, many heroes. Most of those heroes grew vain and remained only in great cities like Thebes and Athens. But Heracles, he always remained humble. This village, Karitsa, and Dion were ones he frequently visited."

The ground began to rumble. Cracks made their way through the asphalt of the highway that the two and their horses were standing on. Their horses began to neigh loudly, shifting their feet upon the now unstable ground.

Artemis leaned forward, cooing in her horse's ear, but Anthony's horse began turn itself in each direction uncontrollably until suddenly it bucked Anthony off and dashed away from them.

The rumbling ceased.

"You alright?" she asked.

He nodded and quickly brought himself to his feet. "What was that?"

"That," she replied quickly staring at something behind him.

He quickly turned toward the direction of Mt. Olympus and saw five women. He quickly noticed that the bottom half of each of the women were snake bodies.

"What are those?!" he called out.

She lept off her horse and unstrapped the bow that was sheathed within her horse's pack along with her quiver of arrows. "They're daughters of Echidna," she replied before pulling an arrow from her quiver and setting it on her bowstring. "Take my sword."

"But, I've never -"

"GET IT!" she commanded.

He quickly went to her horse's pack, pulled the sword from its sheathe. The sword was heavier than he though causing him to grip the hilt with both hands. He clumsily pointed the sword towards the oncoming creatures and asked, "What now?"

"The pointy end goes into the monster."

He looked at the daughters of Echidna as their got closer. He noticed they were naked. The lower half of their snake bodies were covered in black scales. Their dark brown, speckled skin was covered in dried mud. He noticed their hands had claws and their teeth were jagged and their eyes gleamed yellow with rage and hunger. Instead of hair, their head was covered in the same scales that their snake tales had.

"Don't let them eat you," she said before she loosed one arrow.

The arrow found its way directly into the eye of the daughter of Echidna that was in the center. The force of the blow sent her flipping back with her snake tale swinging under her and forward.

The other four paused to take a look at their fallen sister, then turned back at the two and continued their approach but this time they slithered slowly and spread out.

Artemis placed another arrow against her bowstring. "Watch my back. These beasts like to surround their enemy in groups."

He nodded as he watched the remaining four spread out so that they were all surrounded. The horse began to neigh loudly against, stomping its feet. It was panicking. He stuck the end of the sword in the ground before taking hold of the loose reins. He began to gently pat the side of the horse's neck and cooed in its ear as he saw his aunt do.

"Anthony!" she called out.

He grabbed the sword as the four daughters resumed their approach from all four directions.

She loosed another arrow, but creature she aimed at dodged it. She pulled two long daggers from another sheathe in her horse's pack after strapping her bow to herself.

One creature leapt towards Artemis. In response, she charged forward, hurdled over the advancing creature. She quickly strapped two daggers to her belt, grabbed her bow and an arrow, and loosed it towards the creature that advanced. It turned quickly, but didn't move fast enough as the bow found it's way into the creature's head.

The other serpent swiped at Artemis' connecting with her shoulder. Artemis tumbled back and grasped at her left shoulder. It was bleeding, but the wound wasn't deep. She strapped her bow back to her side and unveiled a dagger in each hand.

The serpent that stood before her crouched low in preparation of attack.

Artemis quickly glanced back at Anthony.

He was swiping at them while both were in a crouched position seemingly searching for their attack point. "STAY BACK!" he yelled at them.

The serpent by Artemis lunged forward with both her clawed hands ready to swipe and her jagged teeth and forked tongue exposed. She waited till the serpent was close enough and struck forward with her right dagger. The serpent swiped it away. She then struck with her other dagger sending it deep into the serpent's ribs just below one of her very large breasts.

The injured creature hissed loudly and grasped at Artemis, digging her claws into the former Olympian. She yelped out until finally the creature died and loosened her grip.

"HELP!" she heard Anthony yell out.

She quickly turned to find him on his back. One serpent was on top of him, trying to bite and scratch at him as he struggled to keep both from happening. She looked around for the other serpent, but found that it was lying on the floor with the sword buried deep in the space between her neck and shoulder.

She grasped her bow, set an arrow to her bow string, but realized she couldn't do it. Her hands were numb. She fell to the ground unconscious.

Anthony heard the thump and quickly glanced to see Artemis on the ground. Still struggling, the serpent kept gnashing her teeth at him. Suddenly, the serpent lifted off him. Shocked, he thought they could fly. But no, the serpent wasn't flying. It was being held by something much bigger. Anthony could see a large hand grasp at the serpent's head and watched as it was pulled clean off.

The large, hulking man tossed the corpse of the serpent aside and leant a hand out to Anthony. Anthony grasped the large hand and felt himself jerked up to his feet.

"You hurt?" the large man asked.

Anthony noticed that he stood just above the man's firm stomach. He knew he was considered taller than most, but this man was absolutely gigantic.

"Are you hurt?" the man asked again.

"I'm fine, but I think my aunt needs help," he replied as he quickly walked over to her.

The large man followed, kneeled over Artemis, and picked up her arms. "She's been poisoned," he said before picking her up and placing her on the horse. "We must move quickly." The large man took the reins of the horse and began to walk into Karitsa. "I'm Heracles."

"Uncle... Uncle Heracles?"

"Heracles is fine," he quickly corrected.

All of the homes that were damaged were empty, but as they continued to walk deeper into the village, Anthony noticed that some homes were repaired and could see a few heads peeking through the draped windows.

"How many people are there here?" Anthony asked.

"About fifty. Mostly women and children with a few farmers."

They stopped by a gateless short white clay wall. Heracles attached the reins to the post and picked up Artemis. He walked towards the small house.

Anthony followed. The house was just as small as the others they had passed with the same faded red clay roof. The door was actually a very large brown towel that was attached to the top of the inside doorway. The first room was round. To the right was the kitchen and on the opposite side two doors.

Heracles opened one door and laid Artemis on the bed. He quickly walked towards the kitchen, opened a cabinet and pulled some small herbs that Anthony didn't recognize.

"Is there anything I can do to help?" Anthony asked.

"Yes," Heracles replied. He showed Anthony a small flower with many pink petals and short yellow pistils. "I need you to find this Peony flower. It grows randomly in the fields between Kasitka and the plateau of Mt. Olympus. Grab as much as you can find and hurry."

"Will she be OK?"

"I don't know. Hurry."

Anthony nodded before quickly making his way out of the house.

After mashing what he had left of his Peony flowers, he headed back to Artemis with the paste in hand. He pulled a stool next to the bed and sat on it.

Although the room didn't have any windows, it did have a sunroof. The cloudy glass in the ceiling kept this room always dimly lit and unfavorably cold.

He grabbed two finger scoops worth of the paste and rubbed the paste in the wounds on her arms where the serpent creatures had dug their claws. He could see the veins from the wounds turn dark.

Someone knocked on the door before he quickly whirled around in response. "Love, it's only me," said the blonde woman. She was wearing an old white t-shirt that she utilized as a dress and old black sandals. Her hair was tattered as if she had just woken up. "Who is that with you?"

"Artemis, my sister," he replied solemnly as he placed a hand on her forehead. He noticed that her head was extremely warm before saying, "Get me a damp towel and a bowl of water, quickly."

With that, the blonde woman left.

Artemis groaned.

"Arty? It's me."

But she didn't reply.

The blonde woman arrived with the damp towel. He took it, squeezed it of any excess water and placed it gently on his sister's forehead.

-

Just outside of the small village Karitsa, stood an enormous dog-like creature with three heads. Thick saliva drooped from each of the three heads as all three heads were focused on the small village. Its thick black fur was covered with cakes of mud and dried blood and its eyes gleamed with a yellow tint. The large beast was accompanied by two similar creatures, but smaller. One was red and the other brown.

"Kerberos, m'lord," said the brown one. "We should strike now."

The center of the three heads shook in disagreement. "No, Gaeros," Kerberos replied. "You've heard the stories. Heracles has taken part in destruction of most of my kin. We will attach once the god is alone."

"And what of the Demigod?" Gaeros asked.

"As we learned from his encounter with the daughters of Echidna, he has no battle skills. We should rid the universe of the last of his ilk," said the red three-head dog beast.

"I agree with Kaiphos," Gaeros added.

"The godling's time will come," Kerberos replied. "Until then, patience. Our father waited and planned for six thousand years. We can wait a few more days."