“Good day, Olympus!” called Pain, and his voice was somehow amplified, filling the huge space. Everyone in the crowd fell instantly silent. “Welcome to a rare spectacle indeed. Your warrior God, Ares, is here today to prove his strength to us all.” He paused to throw a smile at Ares. “And he will be fighting with a human companion!” Mutters rumbled through the assembled folk. I shifted my weight, a hand going instinctively to my knife for comfort. “There will be three rounds, two today, and a finale tomorrow, provided they live that long.”
Ares gave a small hiss as laughter and louder chatter rippled through the fighting pit.
“As a divine God of your stature, we need to put you at a disadvantage of some sort,” said Pain, and Ares stiffened. Was Pain not going to acknowledge the fact that a god with no magic powers was already at a freaking disadvantage? Did the crowd know Ares had no power? “You may either wear your armor into the ring, or take your sword.”
“I will not fight without either,” growled Ares. I felt a small tug in my gut, and even though his size didn’t change, he seemed to loom larger in the box. Terror’s stone face turned my way, and my skin crawled instantly.
He knew. I was sure he knew that Ares was using my power. Instead of asking about fucking flame dishes, or arguing about using my power, I should have been asking more about the Lords, more about what the rest of Olympus knew about Ares’ loss of power. Frustration filled me as I realized how woefully under-informed I was.
“Then you forfeit,” said Pain with a shrug, snapping my attention off Terror.
“Never.”
“Then choose. Armor or Sword.”
I knew which he would choose, even before Ares yanked his sword from its sheath. I couldn’t see his eyes, but I could feel the fury rolling from him.
“You will regret this,” he said through clenched teeth, before crouching and laying his weapon on the carpeted floor. I saw that same flicker of doubt that I had seen the day before cross Pain’s face, but Terror spoke.
“So you keep telling us,” he said lazily. “We are acting exactly as you have trained us to act, mighty one.”
Ares straightened, and I felt a sudden jerk in my stomach. A tiny crack appeared down the side of Terror’s face, and he took a step backwards, a sharp intake of breath escaping his stone exterior.
“I want to begin now,” said Ares, and with a sideways glance at Terror, Pain clapped his hands and we flashed again.
“What the fuck did you do that for?” I hissed, as soon as the second flash cleared and I saw that we were now standing in the middle of the sandy ring. I walked slowly in a small circle, looking up at the now roaring crowd surrounding us.
“He needed to be reminded of his place,” said Ares, his voice still loaded with fury.
“Save it for the Trial!” I pointed at the crowd. “Do they all know that Zeus stole your power?”
“No. Absolutely not. Hades and Poseidon have forbidden all knowledge of Zeus’ actions to be public.”
“Well, your Lords worked it out pretty quickly. I reckon your rumor mill is pretty busy,” I muttered. “What are you going to do without a sword?”
“The same as you,” he grunted.
“I have a knife,” I said, pulling it from my pocket and flicking it open.
“I have these,” Ares said, and smashed his fists together, making the armor over his forearms ring loudly.
My instinct to compare him to the Incredible Hulk died on my lips, as his eyes sparked. He was pretty impressive, if I was being honest.
And his strength and anger was doing something to me. My usual adrenaline hit before a fight felt like it had been multiplied by ten, delicious energy coursing through my body, making it hard to stand still. My eyes were flicking between each of the barred gates around us, and slowly everything before me became tinged with red. I was ready.
A booming rumble began, and the sand-covered stone beneath my feet began to move. Large jagged bits of rock began jutting up from the ground and I looked fast between them, noticing metal shining in all of them.
“Are they... swords? Like actual swords in stones?” I called over the noise.
Ares moved toward the closest one as the rumbling stopped. “Yes.”
“Mighty Ares! This will be your only chance to procure yourself a weapon! If you cannot remove the weapon from the stone, you shall continue the competition unarmed!”
“What about me?” I protested, and Ares flashed me a look.
“I thought you had a weapon,” he said snarkily, then pulled himself up the nearest rock. It was about five feet high and uneven, but he made short work of getting to the shining sword hilt buried in the top. A deep scraping sound made my head snap to the left, and I saw one of the iron gates barring the doors into the ring start to lift.
“Ares, something is coming,” I called, as another scrape followed it, and a second gate lifted.
One by one they all started to rise, and I looked back to the warrior God as he closed his hand around the hilt of the sword and screamed.
I could actually see the electricity around him, it was so intense. Purple and yellow sparks of power leaped and danced across his metal armor, and he tipped his head back as he wrenched his hand from the weapon.
“Careful now!” sang Pain’s voice across the pit. The crowd roared with laughter.
It’s a test of pain, I reminded myself, as Ares stared down with burning eyes at the sword. And this god would back down from nothing, of that I was sure.
I couldn’t help flinching as he moved again, closing his fist for the second time around the sword hilt. This time his scream was more of a groan, but just as much sparking electricity bounced over his body.
The sword moved though. Only an inch before Ares let go again, chest heaving, but it did move.
I looked warily back at the open gates. If Ares didn’t get the sword out before whatever it was we were supposed to fight came out, then I might just have to show him how much he had underestimated me.
20
Bella
As Ares pulled on the sword for the third time, a figure stepped out of the gate on my left. Heart pounding in my chest, I turned to face it. Taller than Ares by a few feet, the thing had one gleaming blue eye in the center of a flat face, shrouded in a deep hood. The cape dropped all the way down its body but was open enough for me to see that it was wearing a small white wraparound garment held over its thighs by a leather belt. In one hand was clutched a tall staff, sparking with the same energy that was tearing through Ares from the sword.
In time with a yell from the God of War, the staff stopped glowing. I looked between the two fast. The staff had stopped glowing when Ares had let go of the sword.
They were connected. The staff was the source of the electricity, I was sure.
“We need to destroy his staff, then you can get the sword!” I shouted.
“I will get the sword myself,” Ares barked, and lunged for the hilt again. I screwed my face up as two more cyclopes stepped out of two more gates, each with glowing staffs. Shit.
“You’re an idiot! Let’s deal with these guys first, then getting the sword will be easy!”