Pawn (23 page)

But still what was he to do with them? He stared at Moirae and she finally answered him. An answer given without a question ever having had to be asked. That was a first.

“Weapons crafted by Hephaestus himself.”

“Hephaestus?” Now that was a name that Rufus knew, though not as the smith of the gods, but rather as the long suffering husband of Aphrodite. He had done a lot of reading on the internet during the wee small hours when he should have been sleeping, curiosity forcing him to endure even exhaustion, though several times he’d fallen asleep in front of the screen and once he’d awoken on the floor under the desk.

He’d asked Di when they’d first met if she was married, unable to believe that such a beautiful woman hadn’t been snapped up, and she’d said not. But still it was a worry for him, and the stories he’d been reading of her on the internet, painted a far from flattering picture of Aphrodite. But the picture they painted of the goddess and the woman he knew were two very different people. The Aphrodite of mythology was a married woman who serially cheated on her husband and had children it seemed, by all of them. The Di he knew, would do no such thing. He knew her. And despite the fact that he hadn’t known she was a goddess until quite recently, he knew who she was. She wasn’t a liar and she wasn’t a cheat. Her beauty came from within and those things would not have been beautiful.

“The maker of the deadly beauty and the joyous salvation.” Rufus was beginning to suspect she liked speaking in riddles. Maybe it came with the job. But still he understood what she meant for once. Weapons and armour.

“Choose.” She didn’t have to tell him a second time, and despite his reservations he wandered over to the armoury, curious.

It was a strange assortment of weapons, and none of them were quite normal, or at least what he assumed a normal ancient weapon should be. They looked like normal enough weapons, at least to his eyes, but as he gazed on them something within them spoke of things he didn’t quite understand. In fact it was almost as though there were two sets of weapons in front of him. The ones that his eyes could see, and the ones that his other strange mystical sense could feel.

“How do I choose?”

“You will know it when you see it.” She was back to being cryptic again, but then that was pretty much what he expected, and he didn’t let it bother him. Instead he simply concentrated on the weapons, studying them with his eyes and feeling them with his soul. Letting them speak to him. And they did speak.

They whispered to him as he gazed on them, telling him of their nature. Telling him what they were used for and what they weren’t. And despite the fact that they were all simple weapons of war, they all had far more complex duties. One of the swords whispered to him of the way that it liked to punish betrayal. Another showed him what it wanted to do to thieves. It wasn’t a very pleasant image. And a shield showed him of the power of light that it contained. Light to see and light to blind. They might be all simple weapons, but in the end there was nothing simple about them.

So he wandered along the display, gazing in turn upon each weapon or piece of armour, letting it tell him what it was and what it wanted, until finally he found himself standing in front of an iron blade, and something in it called out to him.

“This I think.” He didn’t know why the sword called to him, but it did. A longsword with a leaf blade design on its hilt. It just seemed right somehow. As did the ringmail vest beside it and the rectangular shield. And when he picked up the sword, that feeling just grew. It felt right in his hands, and when he swung it, it seemed to move just as he wanted it to. More than that it almost seemed as though the sword knew him as right for it. It accepted him. Could that be possible? Did it mean anything? How was he to know? All he knew was that the weapon felt right in his hands, though a gun might have felt better.

Then he grabbed the vest beside it, stiffened black leather covered in rings of shining steel, and after taking off his jacket, he discovered that it fitted perfectly. Perhaps that was as it was meant to be. A strange outfit, a little stiff around the shoulders, and with the leather apron hanging down in front, almost embarrassing as it felt a little like a dress, but he suspected it would do a good job of protecting him. From a sword at least. A bullet was another matter. But wearing it he felt protected. The vest told him, whispered into his very skin that it would keep him safe.

Next there was the shield, a large bronze rectangle that weighed almost nothing in his off hand but which moved almost as easily in his hands as the sword. Instinctively he knew that it could be both a shield and a weapon, the grip designed so that he could smash the solid piece of bronze directly into an enemy’s face. He’d seen the others using their great round shields in exactly that way. He’d been on the receiving end of more than a few of those blows in the arena, and he knew they hurt. This he hoped, would hurt more.

Last there was the hammer. It should have been a belt knife, his second weapon. He’d seen enough of the war gods carrying them. But it wasn’t. The long handled hammer called to him like all the others and when he reached for it, it reached back. A hammer for punishing the wicked. He even found a hook ready for it on his ring mail armour.

Feeling somewhat foolish he turned back to the others, thinking that this was simply more insanity and that he must look absolutely ridiculous, only to see them staring back at him with what almost looked like respect. They could one and all beat him in the arena, they all had, and yet for the first time it seemed that they considered him more than just a practice dummy needing instruction. Then they nodded back at him and he wondered if the world was turning upside down. Again.

“Behold brothers and sisters. The Celt walks among us once again.” Polemos raised his hands out wide and shouted the words to the sky like a proclamation. A challenge to the very heavens. And the others burst into applause, as if he’d done something amazing instead of just picking up a few pieces of armour. But who was he to judge? As for ‘Celt’, and ‘once again’? He didn’t understand that, but he didn’t ask the obvious questions knowing he’d get no answers. After a while he’d become used to that strange code of silence.

Still maybe Polemos was right in one thing at least, he realised as the assembled gods of war continued their thunderous applause. He wasn’t Greek, he was of British and Irish ancestry. Longswords and ring mail were Celtic weapons, and he was a Celt, at least in ancestry. The javelins, curved swords, round shields and bronze chest plates were Greek.

He felt like a foolish kid playing dress ups, but still he nodded respectfully back to them when they finished, wondering whether he’d even be able to use the weapons when the time came. Wondering also whether he could somehow lay his hands on a gun. But mostly rather grateful that he wasn’t expected to wear a toga. That would have been too much with his rather skinny legs. Especially on a cold winter’s day. Things could get a bit chilly in unfortunate places.

This outfit would allow him to wear leggings underneath and no one would have to see his knobbly knees. But there were more important things to worry about than fashion now that he was armed. He turned back to Moirae.

“You said Di’s been kidnapped?”

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Chapter Twenty Six.

The underground waterways stank, but that was because they were really just old sewers. At least that was Rufus’ guess, and he could only hope that they weren’t still being used as such. Dank smelling water was bad enough. He didn’t mention it to the others though. There would be no point, and in any case the smell didn’t seem to bother them. They just strode on through the dark, torches held aloft, making their way in to the castle proper, unworried by the mud and filth squishing between their sandal clad toes. And that was a really big part of the problem Rufus was having with the entire expedition. It just seemed wrong.

The whole thing was surreal. It was the twenty first century for goodness sake and they should have been carrying hand held LED devices, which were much smaller and lighter, and put out better light. But then they should also have been carrying modern weapons, not swords and spears and wearing combat gear not ancient armour. And who would wear sandals to wander through a sewer? It was all so wrong. In fact it felt almost as though they were playing some form of Dungeons and Dragons or practicing their tomb raiding. As long as there wasn’t an actual dragon ahead.

The other problem he had was their approach. They were supposed to be sneaking in, unseen, while a diversion above ground stopped Plutos from noticing them. Yet no one was sneaking. Yes they were in the ancient sewers supposedly hidden from view, but Polemos and the other warriors seemed to have no concept of sneaking. They were all but marching through the dank knee high water, sending it sloshing in all directions. They weren’t whispering either. At best they weren’t shouting as they constantly slapped each other on the back and boasted of the glorious battles and kills they would make this day.

Yet even if they had been quiet, Plutos should still have noticed them. He was after all a powerful god, he surely had to know a battle was coming, he knew where they would strike, and he would be waiting for them. Still there was no point in mentioning it to the others. He was still unclear about large chunks of this entire god business anyway, and he needed their help. A consort might have some unusual gifts, but against a god?

So they marched on through the dark tunnels and he marched with them and wondered who to pray to. Especially when Di’s life was on the line.

And how could that be anyway? How could a goddess have been captured, even by another god. The more so when the other god was a god he’d never heard of and Di was Aphrodite, one of the most famous? The others had tried to explain it to him, a little. About how the celestials fortunes waxed and waned according to the value of that which they represented. But he didn’t really understand it. Beauty was beauty after all. Love was love. And surely she should still be a powerful goddess. It wasn’t as if she was the goddess of shoe polishing after all.

But he did understand that commerce was more important than it ever had been, and that the worship of the mighty pound was becoming more pronounced. There were so many who spent their days doing nothing but trying to gather more wealth to them, who dreamed of riches beyond their imaginations. And at the same time there were so many more who yearned for just a few more pounds every day so that they could eat or put a roof over their heads. Money was a powerful force. So if that near worship fed into Plutos’ hands, that was not a good thing. If money ruled the world then he might well rule the heavens.

A growl split the air and echoed through the sewers, instantly taking his mind off his questions. It sounded like the roar of a beast, a lion maybe. But what a lion would be doing in a place like this he couldn’t imagine. Except of course, that Plutos had known they would come for him. Still he drew his sword and waited, wishing he knew what it was and perhaps even more importantly, where it was. The bloody sewers were a dark, twisted maze.

“Guys?” Every one else was standing there, weapons at the ready as they waited, and for the first time they’d stopped talking. But instead of worrying, he could see several of them grinning, their white teeth shining in the torchlight. But then that was one of the other things he was slowly discovering about gods and in particular war gods. They didn’t just do things, they actually were what they represented, and for a war god, battle was more than just a necessary evil. It was what they lived for. It was their very essence. For them, this was home.

“Shush!” Polemos told him to be quiet, for once serious. And then with a series of hand gestures he sent half a dozen of the others up two other sewer tunnels. A couple more he had backtrack their path, just in case they were being followed. It was probably a good idea, except for the fact that it left him and Polemos alone. Rufus would have mentioned that, but the big man surely already knew it. He wasn’t afraid, which was lucky since Rufus’ skin was crawling and his knees were shaking.

Then disaster struck and he was too slow to realise it. More growls split the air, echoing throughout the entire underground tunnel system, and he heard the sounds of men and women going into combat. There was shouting and screaming, the noise of steel hitting stone and flesh, the snarling of wild beasts in full fury, and the thumps as heavy people and beasts smashed into each other in the dark. That was frightening enough, but things got far worse when from out of nowhere he heard a much louder growl, and then saw a dark shape leap down upon Polemos from a ledge just above them.

Things became crazy about then. He saw Polemos go down into the dank water, for maybe half a second, but almost before he could blink the big man, the war god was back up on his feet and the huge beast’s neck was in his hands as they wrestled. Then in a strange twisting move, he somehow picked up the beast, swung it over his head with a ferocious yell, and hurled it somewhere away into the darkness. Then he gave chase, sword in hand, screaming his head off, and Rufus realised in horror that he was alone. He didn’t want that.

Despite it probably being the worst thing he could do, he gave chase down the tunnel after Polemos and the great black beast. Anything was better than being alone in the dark surrounded by monsters. He couldn’t catch them though. The beast was running, four legs always faster than two, and Polemos was giving chase, bellowing like a wild man as he yelled out ancient Greek war cries, and Rufus was simply no match for either of them. Before he’d made a hundred yards they were both gone from his sight, and when he reached the place where they had been, it was to find a five way junction of tunnels, the sounds of battle echoing down all of them. He had no idea at all which of them the two combatants had gone down.

At that point he realised, all he could do was turn back and try to find the others, and at least he knew they were alive. He could hear their cries echoing through the tunnels. But it was then that he discovered a new problem. The beast that had attacked Polemos hadn’t been alone, and its pack mate was behind him. It had chased him down the tunnel.

“Oh crap!” Seeing it there, walking slowly towards him, stalking him, Rufus finally had a chance to make out what it was, or really what it wasn’t. It wasn’t a dog, it was far too big, and it wasn’t a lion either. It was too big for one of them too. Hellhound maybe? The word just slipped into his thoughts as he stood there, sword in hand, feeling very inadequate. But if a jet black Doberman could have grown to maybe five hundred pounds, stood as tall as a pony, grown a second head full of needle sharp teeth, and managed to have a little fire streaming gently out of its nostrils, then it would probably be called a hellhound. Of course it could also be called a nightmare.

“Nice doggy.” As though it was some sort of bad movie the words just came out of his mouth. But it wasn’t a movie, and it wasn’t a nice doggy. It was a very bad one. It heard the fear in his voice, its red eyes, all four of them, sized him up as a delicious snack, and it knew it had him. With a howl that shook his very bones and a couple of jets of fire streaking for the walls on both sides, it charged him.

He saw the great beast coming for him and Rufus knew he was dead. All alone and about to be cooked and eaten. He wanted to run screaming, but he simply couldn’t. His legs had turned to jelly, there was a gone feeling in his guts, and he would have shut his eyes if he could have dared. But there was nowhere to run to and nothing to do except fight.

“Courage.” Moirae’s words came back to him as the fire breathing monster got closer and closer with every massive bound. And he knew she was right. He had to find his courage. He could not let Di be hurt. He could not fail her. So somehow he gripped his sword and his shield tightly enough to crush their metal handholds, braced himself, and waited. Besides in the Palaestra he had faced some powerful opponents. He had faced the gods themselves. This thing was only a monster. Surely it would be no match for him, armed as he was. He hoped.

Then it charged him, moving like the wind, fire blasting all around and he held his shield up high and waited. The impact as its nearest head smashed into his shield was titanic. It should have shattered stone walls. It should have smashed him through them. But it didn’t. Instead somehow he held and the brickwork under his feet gave way instead. The beast gave way too, bouncing backwards. The hellhound roared its surprised fury as it was knocked back, through both its heads, and Rufus abruptly realised that he’d withstood its attack. Something that was impossible. But most things these days were impossible, and he didn’t have time to wonder about it. The battle wasn’t over. There were more important things to worry about.

Even as he started breathing again, the thing sent a double jet of fire his way, and even through his armour he felt it singe him. But reactions born of all those weeks in the arena had made him surprisingly quick, and he managed to dodge out of the way before it got any worse than a minor burn.

Of course the hellhound turned to face him again, and then charged him fire streaming all the way, determined to cook him right through, and in that instant Rufus suddenly saw his chance. Punch and block, smash hard, all that training against people, and it would work here too. As though he’d practiced the move all his life, he twisted to one side, letting the beast almost race past him, and then while it tried to turn smashed his shield into the nearest head, hard, causing the hound to howl with pain as the force of the blow knocked it back. It spun it around too, just a little, but enough to expose its flank, and that was the opening he needed. Even while it was still distracted by the force of the blow and trying to turn back to face him, he lunged for it, the sword striking at its side.

It was a perfect strike. The sword darted in, opening up a huge rent just behind its front leg, and when it came away as he danced back he could see blood all over its blade. He could hear the pain in the beast’s terrible howl. It was then that Rufus knew he had the beast. Five or six hundred pounds of fire breathing two headed hellhound, and he knew it was his. That was a feeling like no other. A surge of triumph and exhilaration like nothing else he’d ever known. But he couldn’t let it control him. The fight wasn’t over and the beast was angry.

It came for him of course. Lunging at him exactly as he had. But it wasn’t enough, and Rufus simply side stepped it, he would never complain about those gruelling weeks of training again, before hammering his shield into it. Another titanic blow, and once again the beast was knocked back on its side, its flank opened up again. That was his chance.

He lunged for it, smashing it again with his shield as it tried to whip around to face him, hitting it so hard that it was sent flying back a few more yards. But more than that, it was shocked, off balance, not quite sure what to do, and he knew it was his time to strike. He charged it, letting his sword hang a little low, and with a flick of the blade sliced right through its foreleg. The sword came back cleanly, and the hellhound’s front leg came completely away, falling into the black water, and it almost followed it in, off balance.

The beast howled its fury and pain at him, shocked at the injury. But he knew it wasn’t finished. It still had plenty of life left in it, and a hatred for him that would keep it attacking until the very last breath had left its body. But for the moment it was slowed.

That just opened up another opportunity for him, and while it was trying desperately to find its balance and stay upright on three legs, he darted in again and let the sword slice right through its nearest neck. It wasn’t a perfect strike, he hadn’t cut quite deep enough, but still the head fell down, hanging on to the neck only by a thin strip of skin and muscle. The spine itself was severed.

After that it was easy. The beast didn’t know which way to turn. Two more quick lunges with the sword, the first to open up most of its chest and the second to remove its other head and the beast was dead. It fell into the black water, which he suspected was now a slow moving river of blood, and he suddenly understood the battle was over.

“Yes!” It should have been a cheer, a shout of triumph, but he just didn’t have the breath for that, and what came out was more of a gasp, but the feeling was the same. A surge of relief and triumph such as he’d never before known. A heady mixture that another time would have had him dancing on the ceiling with exhilaration. But there was no time for that. The sounds of battle were still raging all around, echoing through the sewers, and he knew that this was only the first of many creatures he’d have to kill this day.