The Heart of War (39 page)

 Daniel and David had to walk but it would not take them long to hustle down the steep stairs carved into the cliff face. Instead of Ares wasting time teleporting or walking to the south end, he used his powers to communicate with the animals as he raced down to water’s edge. He needed to alert Cerberus and the Golden Hind to the approaching danger.  Each would be very useful tonight.

Stopping short near a line of heavy rocks on the shoreline with his feet in the water, Ares reached between them, plunging his gloved hand deep into the cool water and rummaging around until his hand seized upon metal.  Planting one meaty boot against a rock and leaning back on the other foot, he hauled the chain upward with nearly all of his considerable Olympian strength, letting out a warrior’s cry as he did. Thick muscles in his arm and neck tensed and stood out at attention as Ares put his back into his work.

Buried way under the sand outward to twelve yards from shore, slowly, three rows of punji sticks rose from the sea.  Tightly bound with barbed wire and placed a mere three feet apart, each stick over six yards in length and nearly a foot around carved to sharp points from the heaviest mahogany he could find.  They jutted fearsomely from the water at a 45-degree angle and were a fantastic deterrent for anything and anyone within twenty-five yards of the island.  Altogether the length of punji sticks, three rows deep, and running more than half a mile long covered a quarter of this side of the island, they weighed well over a ton and it took quite a bit of strength to raise and secure them in place.  Ares did this last by wrapping his end of the heavy chain around a pike planted deep between the rocks for just this purpose. There were three more chains to pull.  Ares wasted no time in getting each section up and secured into place, when he finished his brawny body was covered in sweat, his mind raced with the thought of the coming challenge.

Now when the Druids swam to shore they would have to get past the booby trap and watch as their dead brothers in arms were impaled upon them as they washed up near the shore.  From the south end came Cerberus and the Golden Hind, behind them were two of the four men with the last two hurrying around the north end to the west shore. Ares stood at the fore surveying the water ahead.

“What do you want us to do?” David asked, feeling his heart beginning to race and his mind struggling to keep up. Daniel was the smart one but David had all the brute force.

Listening to the men crying out for Cernunnos to come and save them, Ares smiled and thought he would help put an end to their suffering. “Go over there and pull that lever.” He pointed off toward the cliff face.

David strained his eyes in the direction Ares pointed but saw nothing other than rocks covered with sand, seaweed and barnacles. “What lever?”

“Never mind.” Using his physical strength to pull up the punji sticks kick-started his adrenaline and he did not want to lose it. Ares raised his hand in the air as he heard a creaking sound. Among the jutting rocks, David and Daniel thought they saw something move. Then there was a
whooshing
sound followed by the stench of gasoline. Looking off to the far left, they saw the flow of liquid coming out of the rocks. The water would bring it out about twenty yards beyond the sharp sticks, around to where they stood and then beyond that down the beach. Standing on the beach, very still and quiet, listening to the plaintiff cries coming off the water, Ares tapped his foot for a moment as he waited and waited. As he waited the first of the bodies washed up to the punji sticks.  It was caught up at the first row, an arm wrapped around one stick, and a leg stuck through another.  A few moments later and there was a flood of floating bodies on the near horizon. Beyond them men struggled to stay afloat, to grab whatever they could and use as a raft, they called to each other and to their God as the last of the wave rolled over them. “Spread out down the beach,” Ares commanded. 

Closer now were a few of the live but very wet Druids. The boats carrying the bulk of the invaders were also coming up on the shore. Some of the men on board tossed over life vests, rings, and anything they could find to help save the others.  Others knew they were within firing range of the island and began to open fire. While their bullets would not kill Ares, they would kill his guards and that seemed to be who the Druids were aiming for. They were hoping to take out the underlings before coming after the big boss.

Although most of the bullets fell harmlessly into the water away from shore, a few managed to strike at the shoreline, stirring up little puffs of wet sand.  Several others found their way into already dead bodies, and a few others still, struck friendly targets. That was helpful but he had to get rid of those boats.

“Show time,” Ares crooned with a wide grin as a fireball lit up the palm of his hand. The God of War drew his arm and body back as though he were a major league pitcher and chucked it right down the pike to home plate. It struck the first boat approaching and blew it to matchsticks. Falling bits of burning wood and melting fiberglass ignited the gasoline floating on top of the water, lighting up the dusk to make it look like dawn.  “Come get some!” Ares dared in a loud booming voice. “Come on!”

The men in the water screamed in terror at the sight of the blaze. They tried in vain to swim in the opposite direction but the tide relentlessly pushed them toward the dangerous shore.

3

Climbing down off the throne of bones, heart laden with dread, Alena saw she had a task to take care of; the women. They were standing off in a corner all huddled together wondering what was going on. “Do any of you know how to use a weapon?” Ares hadn’t left any loaded guns behind but she saw where the firing pins and ammunition were kept while Ares got ready for battle. The door was unlocked. It wasn’t any use; all of the women shook their heads.  She wasn’t about to give a loaded gun to someone who didn’t know how to use it. “Gather up some of the smaller daggers then. I want you to go down to your chamber.” She thought for a second about which way the door on the room to the women’s chamber swung open. It did so to the inside of the chamber.  “I want you to bar the door with anything heavy you can find.” They all just stood there for a moment staring at her. “Go on! This is no time to stand around.” She shooed them away with a flourish of her hands. They scattered off to find provisions and weapons they thought they could handle before locking themselves away.

Instead of going with them, Alena grabbed a small dagger and ran back to her room.   If her new Lover was going off to war, going off to fight and kill for her and in her name, Alena was damned if he’d do it without her. Once inside she jammed the blade through the material of the very fine velvet gown a few inches above her knees.  In a great rush, she ripped the sharp blade halfway around one side then halfway around the other until the skirt fell free of the bodice and her legs were bare.   Quickly she scooped up two hair ribbons from the vanity, tied her long silver-gray hair up so that it was back and away from her face, then slid into the boots Ares had given her for their hunting trip. “That’s better,” she said, looking down at herself and then dashing out the door down to the armory where she found the small compound bow and quiver. She stuffed as many arrows into the quiver as she could find.

There was armor in here but most of it was much too large for her. With panic starting to grow inside of her, Alena hunted around for anything she could use and finally settled on a small black leather vest.  Picking it up, she saw heavy metal studs covering it as a musty odor wafted to her nose. She slipped into the vest and secured it over her chest before slinging the quiver crosswise over her shoulder and then slinging on the bow.  The vest had a built-in belt—she grabbed the closest daggers and knives to her hand, stuffing them into the belt, ready to slice and dice at her hand’s command.  Lastly, she hurried through the armory to the small door at the back of the room where Ares kept the firing pins and ammunition for all of the guns in the cave.  He was very meticulous and everything was neatly boxed, labeled and categorized.

How thoughtful.

Alena snatched up ammunition and the firing pins for the handguns left behind on the table in the throne room.  It would not take more than twenty seconds to put the weapons together and make them fire once more. 

In the throne room as she disassembled and reassembled the weapons, she heard the women chatting away upstairs. Grabbing up the working firearms, she went to the bottom of the stairs. “What did I tell you?” she shouted and then ran up the steps as quickly as she could. “Get down there and bar the door!”

All chatter stopped and all eyes turned to her. “What are you doing?” Onya asked, taking in the warrior’s outfit and how oddly well it suited her. 

Norman MacLeod did not raise his only daughter to sit on her ass while others fought, killed and died in her name or for her honor. What would her father think of her if she cowered in the cave as Ares wanted?  He would think her cowardly and unworthy to bear the name MacLeod.  “I’m going to help Ares. The rest of you are going to take your stuff and get down there, all the way down there. Take all your beds, dressers, whatever, and put them tightly up against the door. Jam them up there in a left-hand slant so that if the door does start to open it cannot finish because there will be too much stuff in the way. Pile it up as high as you can so they can’t get over it.”

“He told you to stay here and guard us,” Onya cried in a worried tone. “Don’t you know how important that is to him?”

Yes, she knew and she didn’t want any harm to come to them but more than that, she didn’t want any harm to come to Ares. “You can guard them,” Alena said strongly as she slapped two of the daggers from her belt into Onya’s hand. “They’re not helpless.  Neither are you. Now go.”  Before Onya could protest further Alena dashed out of the room, closing the bedroom door behind her, hoping one of them would be intelligent enough to throw the lock.

Having no idea of how she was going to get past the boulder, Alena sprinted down the stone steps and to what had been the opening of the cave.

4

On the beach the echoes of gunfire rang through air. Ares had hoped for a bigger battle, but it looked as though he was going to be disappointed. The Druids, though they outnumbered the God of War and his meager band of men by more than five to one, were no match for the men on the shore. Druids were useful for conducting Ritual, for Casting Spells, for Divining the Future, but not necessarily as Warriors.

The punji sticks dripping with Druid blood were doing their job, forcing those making it to shore to go around, away from the wide beach and toward the narrow points of the island. There they were trapped and gunned down as they floundered toward land.  It was like shooting fish in a barrel.

Like Ares, Cernunnos may Lord over his woods and his wild creatures but that was where the similarities ended. Cernunnos knew little to nothing of strategy and war. The Celtic God’s mind worked on nothing more than primitive animal instinct, not possessing the higher level of intelligence to be able to reason and see beyond the moment.  Did Cernunnos really believe Ares had no defenses? That his island simply sat here in the middle of the sea unguarded against invaders?  The Horned God must or he would have sent better men.  In the end, Ares believed that Cernunnos would be an easy opponent to defeat once they were face-to-face.

“Ares!”

The God of War turned his head toward the sound of his name. David was pointing toward the water and a man who seemed to walk upon it. He was old, almost older than Time itself, his skin worn and wrinkled almost beyond recognition. In his aged liver-spotted hand, he held a large staff with a crystal on the top.  The Old Druid used the staff to part the last of the water between the two warring sides, allowing the wet, nearly drowned Druids to charge the shore with their guns glazing.

Ares hurdled a fireball directly at the Old Druid and was amazed when it bounced off him and hissed harmlessly in the sea. Ares’ upper lip curled, his teeth bared and he let out a snarl. Maybe Cernunnos wasn’t so stupid after all.  Another tremendous bolt of energy catapulted forth from the Old Druid’s staff as he laid his foot on dry sand. Before his dark smoldering eyes, Anton, a man who had been with Ares for the last fifteen years, was ripped in two equal halves. His left separated from his right and he fell in two heaps on the sand.

“Get him!” Ares shouted out the command as he let a string of fireballs rip from his hands. Each one bounced harmlessly away from the Old Druid. An invisible shield—a force field.  Whoever he was, he must be very old and very powerful indeed if he could conjure such a thing. Less than a quarter mile away from him, Ares saw something horrifying hanging around the Old Druid’s turkey-like neck as he bared his own teeth and revealed a smile older than the hills and teeth just as dirty and pitted.

Thousands upon thousands of years ago Ares killed Halirrhothius, son of Poseidon. The wretch tried to rape Ares’ daughter, Alcippe.  Ares made no bones about the fact that he killed him for this offense and he was justified. Zeus did not see it that way and neither did the other Olympians.  They actually tried him for murder. Ares was the first Olympian ever to suffer such a humiliation and he did not doubt it was simply because he was Ares. If any other Olympian claimed the same, then the rest would have believed him or her and nothing more would have been said about it. They all hated Ares and his offspring, though Alcippe had been a sweet girl who had never done anything to deserve such a wretched thing. To this day, Ares was still angry but he took solace in the fact that, in the end, they found him not guilty and his so-called crime justified.

Before and during the trial, the other Olympians feared Ares’ wrath. Hephaestus—the Blacksmith of the Gods and Aphrodite’s Husband—forged heavy chains with which to hold the God of War while he stood trial for murder; they relieved Ares of his powers temporarily.  If he’d had to wear them for more than a few days, Ares would swear they would also relieve him of his mind. Hephaestus had been only too happy to forget the horrid contraptions; he was still a bit miffed with Ares for screwing his Wife, Aphrodite.