Chapter 1

~~Medusa~~

Blood poured from her scales onto the smooth stones of the temple. There would be no hiding, not while she was marking the path behind her like a bleeding deer. Artemis would have laughed.

“Get back here!” The warrior’s voice echoed throughout the temple, empty as it was. No one but her, no one. Except for these fools.

The four of them poured up her steps, past the garden of statues worn with time, and into the vast nave. It too was filled with statues, but instead of the warriors that decorated the stairs of the temple, these were statues of simple men, women, and children, clamoring over each other to escape something from long ago.

She slithered as best she could among these statues, hiding in the dark, as pointless as it was. They had torches, they had spears and shields, and they would have no trouble dealing with her amid the standing stones. Each time a flicker of fire light crossed the faces of the dead, she looked away from their petrified eyes, and trembled.

“Found you!”

One of the warriors squeezed through the standing statues before lunging at her with both hands upon his spear.

“Leave me alone!” She twisted, veered, and slithered between the array of standing dead with practiced speed. The spear’s tip dinged harmlessly off of one of the stone, but the warrior was not alone. The three others were behind him a moment later, and were circling around her, using the statues of the dead as cover.

She slammed her tail behind her, ignored the pain and splattering red of her blood, and cracked its tip toward one of the warriors who approached. The bastard was too fast, and hid behind the stone dead as soon as she swung her tail. The weight of her body was far greater than the young Athenian could anticipate though, and the statue they hid behind cracked apart like a pebble on an anvil. Bits of the once loyal servant of the gods, now nothing but stone, shattered against the temple walls. The warrior on the other hand had managed to duck, and he dived back down into the shadows cast by their dropped torches.

Another warrior nearest to her, brave, or cocky, took advantage of the distraction. He leaped up onto the statues, and bounced on several pairs of shoulders before throwing himself into the air toward her.

She stared at him, and let the monster inside out. Her face bent, twisted, and elongated. Her jaw grew pointed, huge, her neck grew thick, and her fangs grew massive. Where there was once skin, snake scales emerged and covered her face, neck, even her arms and torso. Her voice came out only as a harsh hiss, and her snake hair grew into a mane of pythons as long as a man was tall.

They wanted to see the monster. Then let them see.

A bright, burning light of gold erupted from her horrible, mutated snake eyes. It lasted only moments, but it was more than enough to cast half the temple in the powerful gaze. The other three warriors were quick to hide themselves behind the many pillars of Athena’s once great temple, but the one in front of her had no such option. He landed only several feet away from the base of her snake tail, and was trying to stab his spear down into her with both arms.

But then he raised raised both his hands into the air, slowly, and with a grinding scream of pain to follow it. The crunch of the transformation was louder than breaking bones, and sounded like rock cracking under flame. With each stomach-turning snap, the Athenian bent and twisted in pain, and each time it was a little less as he was turned.

In only took a few seconds, but it was a few seconds of pain and misery, and she had to watch every unending second of it. The warrior was staring at her, eyes wide, mouth open, screams of pain his last moment before he was nothing but stone.

The deed done, she closed her eyes, and the monster hid itself back into her. Her skin reemerged, and her face molded back into a human’s shape. She was still half snake, but at least the monster no longer devoured her face, and she breathed deep with the effort, exhausted.

“Vile creature! Submit before the will of the gods and die!” Another warrior, hidden, creeping and blending in with the dead. Like wolves prowling among the trees.

“Leave me alone! I just want to be left alone!”

She tried to get breath into her as fast as possible, but there was no time to rest. She could still see glimpses of the others, the edges of their armor and weapons around the sides of the pillars. She bit down on her teeth until her jaw hurt, and snapped her tail, the whole length of it. The nearby statues, with their horrified faces and gaping mouths, gave way to the weight and speed of her body. They broke as ashes; she could mourn them later. For now, she had only one goal.

Her tail wrapped the nearest pillar with the harsh snap of a whip. The pillar shook from the impact, body parts from the destroyed human statues scattered across the temple floor, and Medusa clenched down on the massive muscles that filled her tail. She’d caught one of the intruders in her grip. The warrior on the other side of the pillar struggled for a mere few seconds before his crushed insides ruptured, and vomited blood spilled over her scales.

“Die, monster!”

She made a mistake. Her tail unwrapped from the pillar, and she tried to get away as fast as she could, but another Athenian hidden behind a statue of Athena capitalized and jumped toward her tail. His spear skewered through her scales, worked into the muscle past the ribs of her snake body, before her pained thrashing snapped the spear’s wooden shaft and knocked the warrior backward away from her.

“Please! Let me be,” she said, and started to drag herself away from the two remaining hunters. Don’t look at the spear sticking out of you. Ignore the stab wounds. Ignore the blood. Get away.

But she only managed to reach the pulpit of the temple before she collapsed. Her blood was leaking out of her, stars filled her vision, and her breath came out as nothing but pants. When she looked up, all she saw was the crying face of the temple’s largest statue of Athena. Medusa too started to cry.

“You defiled this temple, whore. A hundred years is too long for a monster such as you to live.”

The one who stabbed her, this time he had a sword and shield, and his face was crazed with rage and bloodlust; his Corinthian helmet could not hide them. He stepped closer and closer to her, up to her tail, past it to walk toward her human half, and he left sandal-prints of her blood behind him. The olive tree carved into the bastard’s armor, gentle and proud, stood in sickening contrast to Medusa. The sword gleamed against the last traces of light that broke into the tainted temple, and his shield glared at him with Athena’s face.

She spit on the shield, directly onto Athena’s cheek, and the warrior glowered in disgust. He raised his sword.

The crunch of twisted bone and flesh caught both Medusa and her would-be killer by surprise. She raised her downcast head to look toward the sea of statues, and the Athenian turned to do the same. They both gasped.

The twilight hour buried everything in massive, blurry shadows that twisted in torchlight, and the temple’s array of dead only added to the confusion, but both of them saw the other warrior collapse forward onto his knees. His head was facing the wrong direction.

Someone in the shadow took a step forward, someone with white, glowing eyes.

~~Darian~~

Not once in his life could Darian remember ever being this dirty.

He was trapped in a cage like a filthy mutt, complete with shit-covered feet, and dirt in every crevice and orifice. Fitting, he supposed. There were wood planks beneath him and ocean air misting through creaking wood, so that the cage had that pleasant odor of rot and fish. Each and every moment, he grew more and more unclean; a never ending journey of increasing foulness.

Darian put his back to the bars and turned to look at his guests. They were all much larger than he, either in height or gut, and hunched over with sleep or boredom. All of them - Darian too - wore the same rags for leggings and shirts of stained brown. No sandals to speak of. Sandals were too good for them. Splinters were apparently an intended form of punishment by their captors.

“Hey kid.”

Darian raised his head. He did look like a kid, or at least a young man. Unlike the fat, lumbering oaf calling for his attention, Darian was a fit and lean little thing. His brown hair was a mess of dirt and oil in his eyes, and his beard had grown scraggly from an obviously unkempt life. With his brown eyes and tanned skin, he must have looked like a farmer’s boy, all ready for the harvest.

“Yes?”

“What marked you?” The fat one approached him. His skin hung off his face with age, but his arms were massive and his scars spoke much. He came closer and reached out; Darian tensed, but the fat one simply put an arm to the bars behind Darian, well over his shoulder.

“Back off.” Darian put his hand against the fat bastard’s chest, and pushed against his rags and carpet of chest chair to get him away. Disgusting.

“Awh, the little boy has bite.” This time, the fat man put his calloused hand against Darian’s chest and pushed him back. The returned favor easily put the smaller man against the jail bars with enough force to rattle them. Darian was only a small thing after all, and this tall, thick trunk of a fat man was likely nearly three times his weight.

“I said, what marked you? What put the boy in here with a slave mark?” the fat man said.

“Yeah, what’d you do to get ruined so early in life?” another man said. This one was bald with burn marks over his skull. His teeth were gone, one of his eyes was nothing but a huge scar, and his lanky form was almost disturbingly bony. Another criminal who lived on stolen scraps, most likely.

“Ahahehee, I bet he banged someone’s daughter. Look at the pretty boy, not a scar on him. Well, except for that one.” And three made the triumvirate of his companions. The third was, what could most concisely be described as a lecherous old goat, complete with a long white beard and bug eyes. Those disgusting eyes were looking at the small V on Darian’s forehead, right between the eyebrows. He was the only one who had the mark.

“Slave for life is a pretty harsh punishment, little boy. Come, tell us what you did. We’re all family now, destined for slaves in Athens.” Back to the fat one. Coincidentally, or at least fittingly, he had a fat tongue too.

“ ... just leave it be, fat man,” Darian said. His voice was cold and his stance firm, even against the rocking of the ship.

“Ooho! Scary!” The old one let out a sloppy laugh and pat his own knee from his seat in the corner. Splashes of waves from the outside managed to creep down through the planks of wood and drip down onto his bald head, but he didn’t even seem to notice.

The fat one apparently didn’t like to be called fat, and demonstrated his frustration with some loud knuckle cracking. Darian didn’t budge or break his gaze, and kept his hands at his sides with clenched fists. Attack me, please, I dare you.

But he didn’t. Instead the fat one just shrugged and returned to his wasted idling. The old man though, he motioned for Darian to come closer.

Darian shrugged, but acquiesced. An old man could prove an unlikely ally, or at least a source of information.

“I recognize you?” he said.

Darian grit his teeth. “Not sure what you mean.”

“You seem familiar to me. May I know why you got marked.”

“Doubtful.”

“No no. Something is familiar! You ... you ... fucked some king’s daughter!”

Everyone burst into laughter, old man included, until they were in stitches and trying to stop before they hurt themselves. Even Darian smiled.

“You think I’d be here if that was true?”

“Maybe. No king would risk the wrath of the Erinyes and kill a guest. Maybe you were a guest?”

It was Darian’s turn to laugh. “You’re a fool if ... never mind.”

No father would walk away from that.

He shrugged, turned away, and put his hand to the bars. They weren’t worth getting upset over, just a few nameless prisoners on the way to Athens, same as him. At least they weren’t slaves for life, as he was.

The floor creaked with the rocking waves, a little louder this time, enough to draw his attention. Maybe a storm was coming? Under the deck, he couldn’t see anything, and the cell had no windows. The smell was atrocious.

“Poseidon seems angry. If we’re forced to abandon ship, I’m leaving the four of you to drown.” A guard sat across from them, the bars between him and the inmates, and he fiddled with a knife with all the care of a child. Athenian, he wore a basic breastplate, and some robes underneath, but that was all. The poor fool did not hold even a helmet. His loss.

Just one more day, Darian thought. Just one more day to Athens, and he would be free again. It would be a simple matter to trick the guard to coming near, and then he would smash the bastard’s head into a mess of blood and bone against the bars. He’d fight his way out, he’d done it before, and then he’d vanish into the forest. Corinth was to the West, perhaps he’d head there?

The ship rocked to its side, this time with enough force that Darian had to catch the bars to keep from falling back. The others in the cell were quick to grab onto whatever was around them, but all they had was a bench, and other than the old man, the rest of them fell over with the sudden rocking. The guard too fell over, and was on his feet a moment later to fix his stool.

“Blessed Tartarus, that is a wicked storm. Captain! Everything all right?” the guard said. Of course, it was all buried underneath the growing roar of the sea. The moaning of bending wood, and the howls of blowing winds were becoming all too bold, to the point the guard gave a groan of frustration and started up the stairs to the main deck.

A cold shiver caught Darian’s spine. Had they found him? Darian pried at the bars; no good, even with his strength. He tried to stick his head between them to see if he could see up the passageway and perhaps get a glimmer of the outside, but the bars were too close together. Again he tried to peel the bars apart, tried until his knuckles turned white and he started to see stars. The slightest bend, but not enough to mean a damn thing.

“The hell you doing kid?” the fat one said. “Ain’t no getting out of here. Besides, slave’s life ain’t so bad, and you’ll be worth some copper I’m sure. Guard won’t let us drown.”

“Least of my worries.” Darian took a breath, and started to shake the bars back and forth. They didn’t even shudder. Whoever built the ship, or at least the cell, really had an art for the craft.

“Watcha mean?”

No point in answering, they were all dead anyway. He’d survive though, if he had anything to say about it. But the ship’s rocking only grew, and the howls of the wind ascended to a crescendo that started to rumble the bulkhead itself. Each moment he was trapped in his cage, with that storm growing stronger and stronger, was a moment robbed of his chances to escape and live.

If it was even his life the storm was after; it could have all been in his head. But another wind howl, shrieking a banshee’s cry, said otherwise, and the crack of thunder that followed it shook him to his core. Eyes were on him, he could feel them. More eyes than the ones in his cell could account for.

He started shaking the bars again. “Help me you damn fools, before we drown!”

“We’re not going to-”

Darian turned and gave the fat man a ‘I will fucking kill you’ glare, and it shut his face fat up in an instant. As if to emphasize his rage, the storm howled again, and this time the ship shook with something harder than waves. It felt like something hit it.

“It’s coming, so get over here and help me before-”

Too late. He really should have just asked for their help earlier. Hubris indeed.

The explosion of water and splinters crashed into Darian before he could even move. The side of the ship collapsed inward, metal bars and wooden beams broke under the weight of something large and dark, and the outcry of cracking wood erupted through the water until Darian could feel it in his bones. He couldn’t see what was happening, he had to close his eyes, but he could feel himself bounce against the lower deck, then something sharp against his leg, and then his head against what could have been anything.

The water pulled back with the same aggression, but he reached out to grab onto whatever it was he just collided with. Sure enough, when the water flooded back out through the giant crack in the ship’s hull, Darien was left holding onto one of the beams, outside of the cell. As the water rushed to and fro, he collapsed from a height and landed on his knees against the deck floor; the water must have crushed him against the ceiling.

He coughed and sputtered on the salt water as it burned his lungs. Get up. Get the fuck up. He would not be this thing’s prey. He would not allow it.

Opening his eyes took a few seconds, and he had to blink several times to make sure he wasn’t seeing just an elongated blur. But no matter how hard rubbed at his eyes, hoping it was just an eyelash on his pupil, the colossal thing was still there. A giant, long slab of seafaring flesh, colored a blue so dark it would have blended with the deepest of the seas. Barnacles covered its skin, like freckles of white along its shape.

The sea groaned, and the giant limb moved in a slow, lumbering way. It was easily ten feet across, and wherever it started and ended were lost in the darkness of where it came from. It had crushed the ship under its weight, and had smashed the cell he was trapped within, only for the rushing water to send him and the others about in a whirlpool. His lean body had slipped through the damaged walls.

The others were not so lucky. The fat man was dead, crushed and filling the water with red. The bald one with the burns was snapped like a twig. The old one was trapped.

“Oh gods ... oh gods oh gods!” he said. Terror and pain were in his wide eyes, and he was pressing his hands against the giant limb. His legs were underneath it, but the creature’s tentacle had cut down through the deck; the old man’s legs were probably just strands of flesh and clothes by that point, and much of the blood pooling around the fat man was probably the old man’s too.

“K-kid! You gotta help me! Come on!” He grabbed at some of the raised and splintered wood, pulled, and got nowhere. “I-” The limb moved, and dragged the old man a foot further back into the water, enough to pull his head under the splashing waves. He kept flailing though, flailing and begging.

Darian got up and started to force his way through the rising water. The icy sea bit at him, and knocked his light body side to side while he gripped at the wooden beams around him. He gave a sideways glance to the old man and the growing pool of swishing blood, and kept going.

He’s not worth it, just another sheep. Just keep going. Survive.

The stairway up to the deck was like a waterfall, and every time the sea took a breath, it flooded down over him so hard his feet flew out from underneath. He had to keep his grip on whatever bits of broken, bent, or sharp wood was nearby, and let the water rush past him between breaths. Progress was slow, and splinters started to build on his hands where he had to squeeze for his life, but it didn’t matter. Pain didn’t matter. Just keep moving.

What surprised him most was the blackness. It was supposed to be midday, where was the Sun? Did even Apollo curse him? The thought made him smile for a moment, but a crashing wave woke him. And then, the sound of screaming.

“We’re going to die!”

“Get up Lucas!”

“Another comes from the East!”

“Get your swords up! It-”

The exploding sound of cracking wood and rushing water was all he could hear, until again the sea took another breath. Athenian soldiers were running around with their swords and shields, but the deck of the ship was a mess of chaos, with whole sections of the ship missing. More of the giant limbs were there, circling the massive ship like pythons, and strangling the ship to its last sliver of life.

Where there should have been a sun, there was only rolling crowds that snapped white against black with lightning. The thunder was just as deafening as the roaring waters and snapping timber around him.

“Zeus and Poseidon both rage against us!”

“Athena, what have we done to deserve such wrath?”

More pleas from the panicked crew. Many were just sailors, but the soldiers and guards were just as panicked and worthless. They screamed, cried, and swung their tiny swords at the giant tentacles that circled the ship, but they did nothing.

Darian took a slow breath, and walked out onto the deck. The masts had all been destroyed, snapped like twigs, and their sails were scattered over the chaos; he kept to the outside of the mess, and used a hand against one of the sail’s to balance himself while he approached the railing of the ship.

“Is this all you can do?” he said to no one. No one could hear him anyway over the death screams and the madness. But he smiled anyway, and cast a snarl at the sea maelstrom, and another at the raging sky. “You’ll have to do better than that.”

The sea was listening. The water started to rise, like a dark mountain before him, and kept rising higher and higher until it blocked out the lightning clouds above them. Water poured over its mass like a waterfall until more and more of the thing’s skin appeared underneath. It was as if the very sea itself decided to stand tall and face him.

Darian never did know how to keep his mouth shut.

Another mountain of water rose and split apart like an oozing wound over another of the thing’s limbs. Thrashing waves of white scattered against the broken ship, rocked against it so Darian was forced down to a knee, even as he held onto the torn and toppled sail to keep from falling into the sea. Wind blinded him, stabbed him with biting cold that did not belong, and tried to lift him into the air.

Athenians, guards and soldiers alike, scampered and screamed like dying foxes before the wind ripped them from the deck and tossed them into the sea. Other prisoners lucky enough to get out of their cages cried even louder, their moment of joy and chance of freedom ruined as the ship groaned with its death. Only a few passengers still fought against the tentacles that engulfed the vessel, and they roared with worthless courage while their swords and spears bounced from the sea beast, or got stuck in its hide.

The monster had teeth, that much Darian could see in the chaos of the storm. High above and near the clouds, it faced down toward the vessel, and it roared in return. The heat of its breath and the stink of its meals forced struck Darian’s stomach as much as his body, and the sound shook the waters until the vibrations dislodged broken masts into the churning death.

Darian just smiled. It was the only thing he was legitimately good at, after all.

A moaning so loud it deafened the storm forced Darian to bring his hands to his ears. When he looked up, the monster raised what could only have been an arm; massive as it was, everything it did was slow in contrast to its colossal shape. The motion of its hand moved the air, and blinds of light cast between its giant fingers from the lightning storm beyond it.

Its hand collided with the ship, and Darian watched on as the huge thing crushed a dozen men before it cracked the vessel. Like a child in a stream, crushing a twig against pebbles and shore. Darian, and the corpses of many flew through the air, scattered by the explosion of water, wood, and air.

Funny, all that waited for him was dark water filled with blood and splinters. And yet, he couldn’t stop smiling.

Sea water burned the lungs like a breath of hot smoke.

He woke up coughing on pain, and he raised his hands to his throat before rolling onto his knees and a palm. His coughing was loud and wheezing, and he tried to keep it down before he summoned whatever or whoever was within earshot. No luck. He only made things worse, and the salt burned in his throat all the more.

But ten minutes later, he was sitting up, and looking out over a beach. Sand covered much of his body, and his ragged clothes had somehow managed to achieve a status beyond ragged. He must have passed out under the sun for some time, as the great light was already setting, and his skin had burned a little under Apollo’s brightness. Seaweed was in his hair and beard too.

He stood up, plucked out the seaweed, brushed off the sand, stretched out his muscles, and laughed. He laughed, laughed louder, and laughed until his voice could probably be heard by everyone everywhere. But fuck them all, he didn’t care anymore.

“I live! I live! Fuck you!” He picked up a rock and threw out into the sea. It went far, very far, until it nearly disappeared over the horizon. They could try, but they’d never kill him. It wasn’t going to happen. He wouldn’t allow it.

He took another sigh before scanning up and down the beach he was on.

“An island...” The pebbles that lined the beach were smoothed against the sand, and beach wood was scattered everywhere. The Aegean sea was full of islands, and he had seen many of them, but this one didn’t tickle his memory. “No idea then.” No idea where he was, marooned on an island, with the sun setting, and an empty belly. Delightful.

He turned his back to the sea and looked at what would probably his home for a while, until he could figure out what to do. Maybe it wouldn’t be so bad to just hide from the world for a while. The V on his forehead wasn’t going to just vanish after all. Slave for life. The thought made him grit his teeth until his jaw clicked. Slaves could often eventually earn a living, or even freedom, but he had no such opportunity now that he was marked.

He would kill Proetus and Iobates if he could ever get his hands on them. Glorious images of their brutal deaths danced through his mind, their wriggling bodies skewered on spears. People would call him the Kingslayer. Did he care if people called him that, or even knew? A part of him cared if they knew; old habits die hard after all.

He knocked himself in the temple with a knuckle. Stop thinking about the future and fantasies, think about now. Survive. First thing’s first, explore and search for some water. Food, even shelter could wait; they meant nothing if he was dead from dehydration.

There were a few trees along the karstic landscape, just small cliff faces of white stone, worn with time. The center of the island seemed to rise into a mountain, and it was lined with trees that must have hidden pools of water; these sort of islands always did. And that meant some wildlife. Better than nothing.

It was a longer island than he figured it’d be, and he started to jog along the beach as he tried to circle it. There were other islands on the horizon, but he could see no landmarks he could recognize from the distance. No ships either. Trade ships could come by, but they might not. He could very well be trapped. Maybe he’d die an old hermit? The thought made him laugh again. Would that be just deserts? Maybe.

But, the island started to form shape. Far in the distance against the beach edge, he could see a rising crest, something that stood tall and buried in the silhouette of the island’s center mountain. It was definitely something man-made, or god-made, and as much as it pained him, that meant he had to know. It could be his way off the island. It could mean a trip to Athens to be sold. He kept walking toward it.

A statue, connected to a dock of stone and wood. The statue itself was something weird, some strange shape he could not understand, but it stood well over fifty-feet tall. And, as he got closer, he could see that it was actually two statues, and they were poised ready to pounce upon the ships in the dock. A terrifying sight and beautiful craftsmanship, but the statues had no legs with which to pounce.

That wasn’t entirely true. He approached the dock with peeled eyes, and using what little light was left from dusk, he crept closer to the dock. Only one ship was moored, a small one, and only a few sailors were on it. He recognized it as an Athenian scouting vessel, and no guards, no soldiers, no one of risk was on it. But the ship was moored with long ropes, far too long for him to use as a bridge or ladder, as if the sailors were afraid to be near the island; he would not be able sneak aboard the vessel. So close, yet so far.

He kept to the bushes, and looked up to the statues that faced the nearly empty dock. Two gigantic gorgons, nude, with scaly skin, snakes for hair, horrifying, distorted faces, and huge fangs. Instead of legs, they had long, long snake bodies that melded into the earth, as if they were part of the very island itself.

“ ... Stheno ... Euryale.” Immortal gorgons indeed. The artist responsible for the design of these gorgon statues was inspired. Unless it was Hephaestus’s work, then it was just a sick joke.