Page 73 of Crown of Olympus
We had been out of range enough to avoid devastation, but didn’t escape entirely unscathed. We were now owners of three sets of sodden boots, one pair of ruined sandals, and a muddied gown hem.
“Cocky bastard,” Aros muttered, earning a grin from Aphrodite as she wrung out the bottom of today’s pink gown.
My boot squelched uncomfortably as I grimaced and I walked over to inspect the fortress entrance. The gates had been brutalised — an Archimedes-sized hole hacked into the centre of the wooden surface.
I poked my head through, in spite of the grumbling of my newly freed dragon. Her intense displeasure echoed down the bond.
“It’s clear,” I declared before stepping through. Caelus squeezed through next — evidently broader than Archimedes — with Aphrodite following him and Aros taking up the rear.
The hole was much too small for Rufus or Lykos to follow, so they remained standing guard outside. Lykos offered to tear the gates down completely, but we agreed stealth would be preferable to a dramatic entrance.
Anything could be within these walls — we knew at least two rivals had passed through.
The courtyard was eerily still in the waning sunlight. It was unnaturally silent — no wind stirred the banners hanging from the battlements, nor did the torches flicker.
The back of my neck prickled. Anxiety stirred. The dragon whined softly on my shoulder, either sensing my rising unease or feeling some level of it herself.
“This isn’t right,” I whispered. “There should be guards, or traps, orsomethingstopping us from finding the medallions.”
Caelus hummed an agreement. “Can you smell that?” he asked softly.
The scent of seawater lingered, briny and salty, but beneath it was something else. Something I couldn’t identify. Something that had my hackles rising at the sheerwrongnessof it.
“Yes, but what is it?” Aphrodite questioned hesitantly.
“It’s the smell of war,” Aros offered solemnly. “The smell of blood… mixed with grief.”
With each step, it grew stronger — cloying and suffocating in its intensity.
It was death.
Aphrodite gagged, covering her nose with part of her draping gown.
As we passed through a second set of gates into a much smaller courtyard, I stopped dead in my tracks. What we saw was nothing short of a massacre.
The stone pavers were no longer visible. Every inch was covered in thick, crimson blood. It seeped into every crack, dripped from every sconce, and was splattered across every surface.
I had never seen so much of it in one place.
War, Aros had said.
Then war was mutilated bodies and the stench of iron. It was stifling, now fully drowning out the salty tang of the sea. The smell was so thick it coated my tongue and burned the back of my throat.
The courtyard was a slaughterhouse.
Leander, Archimedes, or both had torn through soldiers —mortalsoldiers — like paper. Bodies were strewn across the ground or hung from the battlements like macabre decorations. One dangled from a candle sconce. Another lay draped over a wooden railing, sans his head.
I hardly knew where one body ended and the next began. What little remained of their faces were frozen in expressions of pain, rage, or shock.
If this was Athena’s second test, then the gods had already failed. For who could cut down those we were duty-bound to protect, and still call themselves a worthy king?
Aphrodite spun away and heaved. She, in particular, would be forever scarred by this depravity.
A cough interrupted my whirring thoughts, followed by the wet, laboured breathing of a dying man. I sprinted to where the sound originated, immediately pinpointing him by the flickering of his soul — something I would not be able to see unless he were right on death’s doorstep.
Careful not to further disturb those already dead, I knelt in the cooling pools of red beside the man.
A profound sadness washed over me — this soldier was not long for the world. He was mostly whole, apart from a deep stab wound in his side. Left for dead.
