Kairos 37: Flames of Tartarus

The winds were Kairos’ battlefield, and the birds his soldiers.

“Flock!” The Travian warlord shouted. “To me!”

Horace and other Stymphalian birds croaked as they took to the skies. Though a few followed Kairos from Histria, most came from Achlys itself, their fickle loyalty bought with meat and promises. Hundreds flew after Rook in a great flock, while their foes were twins.

The Boreads looked beautiful even in undeath, more swans than men. Great white wings carried them to the skies, their golden hair flowing to the night wind. But air swirled around their hands like spears, and they charged with the intent to kill. One engaged Rook in close-combat, while the other flew higher, above the clouds and out of sight.

“Cling to me, Kairos!” Rook shouted while flying as fast as a falcon. Without the saddle, the blowback would have sent his rider falling; but though he had no Riding Skill yet, Kairos managed to keep his spear straight. [Spear Fighting 3] helped him with the balance.

The first Boread, the one charging from the front, raised his hands to surround them into a spear and shield of sharpened wind. He and Kairos circled one another in the skies, weapons raised. If the undead recognized the [Anemoi Spear], which had once belonged to his sire, he didn’t show it. It was a puppet, all skill and no heart.

Kairos had heard of the Thessalan sport called the winged joust, where two pegasus riders attempted to unseat each other with a spear above a pool of soft water. Here only the cold hard ground would embrace the loser, ripping their skulls apart to feed on their warm blood.

The Boread struck the first blow, fast and lethal. His spear of wind aimed for Kairos’ head, while the Travian went for the heart. Kairos dodged the attack by lowering his head, sensing the sharpened wind graze his shoulder, while the Boread deflected the [Anemoi Spear] with his ethereal shield. The pirate sensed the protection give way to his magical spear, but he needed a straight charge to destroy it.

Kairos had an idea how to bypass that defense, but the other twin acted before he could act.

The second Boread made his presence known by raining slicing wind blades from above. The bombardment forced Kairos and Rook to disengage from the melee, the projectiles slicing houses below them. The first Boread went after the griffin and his rider, while his twin provided suppressing fire.

Thankfully, Kairos’ reinforcements intervened. The Stymphalian bird flock launched metal feathers at the second Boread, and Horace’s group attempted to skewer him from all sides. The second Boread was forced to throw projectiles at the smaller birds rather than at Rook, leaving his undead brother to fight alone.

As Kairos prepared to engage the first Boread again, he glanced down to observe the fighting below. The undead had bypassed the outer walls and engaged the Amazon mounted archers in the city’s streets, fighting their way to the inner fortifications. The amazons adopted a hit-and-run tactic, raining arrows, having their horses run back, and turning to strike again. They were too fast for undead archers to hit, and too far away for swords and axes to reach. The amazons’ bowmanship impressed Kairos so much that he swore to hire a few riders if they made it out alive.

But unfortunately, while the amazons weeded out the undead’s ranks, it was the equivalent of wolves running along with a cow stampede. The undead crushed the remains of their fallen allies as they charged, overwhelming the streets in a chaotic horde.

The largest force came from the center, helped by two giants more than eight meters tall. The emaciated monsters had a single black, bloody hole where the eye should have been, and sharp teeth hungering for men’s flesh. They trampled houses under their feet, wearing only tattered rags.

Cyclops. The undead had Cyclops. That was bad. Unlike their smaller kindred, these unliving battering rams could easily tear apart the inner walls if not stopped. They would smash the fortifications and open breaches to let the undead horde through, allowing them to reach the temple.

Worse, the Eidolon of Heracles had reached the defenders’ battlelines first. The colossus ran through houses and fortifications like steel through paper. Amazon riders rained arrows on him, but they bounced off the lion pelt the giant used for a cloth. When Heracles swung his enormous club, stones flew and horses were torn apart.

Medea’s dragon rained a cloud of fiery poison from above, while the witch-queen herself cast a powerful spell. She snapped her right hand’s fingers, unleashed a thunderbolt even more powerful than the one that Lysander used to slaughter Kairos’ crew… followed by a second, then a third, each mighty enough to leave a crater behind them. With the left, she raised the earth below Heracles’ feet, creating sharp spikes to impale him with. Within seconds her magical bombardment had devastated one of Moros’ districts.

This was a [Demigoddess]’ power, and yet Heracles powered through everything. He shrugged the lightning and poison like water, and the stone spikes shattered against his lion skin pelt.

The undead Heracles reached Moros’ inner walls within five minutes, leaving a trail of devastation behind him. He would have smashed these fortifications too had he not fallen into an ambush. The Travians’ hydra erupted from a house where she had remained hidden, flanking the colossus from the left. Her many heads bit at the Eidolon’s arms and ankles to keep him in place. Thalestris herself leapt from the inner walls sword in hands and landed on Heracles shoulder, before stabbing him in a spot unprotected by his pelt. Witches cast spells on the defenders from the fortification.

[Hasten], [Physical Resistance], [Strength Up], [Agility Up], [Improved Regeneration]... The list went on. The witches were casting every buffing spell known to mortalkind to empower the hydra and Thalestris, and even then it only allowed the two to survive. Heracles ripped off some of the reptile’s head, and almost slew the amazon queen with a single blow of his club. Though Thalestris dodged, the strike made the walls tremble, and Medea moved to reinforce her co-ruler.

The battle would be one long-remembered, but Kairos had his own to fight. After checking that Medea wouldn’t turn tail—she didn’t, her dragon raining death upon Heracles while the witch used magic to repair the walls—he focused on the foes at hand.

“Can you fly without seeing your wings?” Kairos asked Rook, as they prepared to engage the first Boread again. The Travian couldn’t risk an extended match, as unlike the living, the undead wouldn’t tire; but his plan would be a first experience for the griffin, and risky.

“I could fly with my eyes closed!” Rook replied, and his rider put the boast to the test.

As they prepared to joust again, Kairos activated his [Invisibility] and [Spellblade] Skills.

As he had expected, [Animal Companion] extended the invisibility veil to Rook too, turning both the griffin and his rider undetectable. Kairos felt his spear brimming with power, while his undead enemy froze in surprise.

Unable to see the invisible spear, the Boread couldn’t defend himself properly. The undead shielded his torso, so Kairos aimed for the defenseless head. The [Anemoi Spear] mercilessly impaled the dead hero through the left eye with enough force to shatter the skull. Kairos sent the head falling down with a swing, the body following suit.

“And one!” The Travian [Hero] glanced at the second Boread, who had surrounded himself with a small tornado to keep the Stymphalian flock at bay. “Now, Rook, go for the other, claws first.”

“Like a fish?” The griffin asked with hunger and excitement. As promised, he could fly straight even while invisible, to Kairos’ joy.

“A flying fish.”

Kairos redirected the winds, but didn’t target the Boread directly. Instead, he created a wind tunnel around Rook and himself. Swirling air formed a corridor around the invisible griffin as he flew upward, swerved to the side, and then dived down like a hawk upon a mouse.

By the time the last Boread sensed his final death approach from above, it was already too late. Rook moved faster than any arrow, swifter than any executioner’s axe.

Kairos’ spear hit the last Boread with the strength of twenty men, the impact snapping the undead in half like a twig. The torso fell off from one side, the legs from the other, though neither shed blood. Only ashes rained upon the world below, as the undead [Hero] returned to the dust from which he came.

“I am a feathered death!” Rook boasted for all to hear, as Kairos lifted the invisibility spell. “A winged god of war!”

The Stymphalian birds let out a screech in response, like crows celebrating their victory. The skies belonged to the living.

The earth below, though, was heavily contested. Thalestris had rammed her sword into the undead Heracles’ mouth, only for the Eidolon to snap it in half with blood-soaked teeth. A kick sent the amazon queen flying, while the undying [Demigod] started wrestling with the hydra. The reptile’s heads left dozens of holes in Heracles’ pallid skin, and a fireball from Medea burnt half the legendary warrior’s face. Yet he kept going.

Meanwhile, the two Cyclops had reached the inner walls and started tearing it down when the Foresight fell upon them. The walking ship had pinned the first giant to the ground with its armored legs, while the crew rained arrows and fireballs at the second from the deck.

Still, the Cyclops had managed to create a breach allowing their lesser kindred to enter the defenders’ fortified position. General Petra rode out of gates in the walls on horseback, alongside Chloris and other amazons. They fell upon dead soldiers with their spears, trampling anyone in their way. This steered the tide for a moment, but not forever. The undead had occupied the town and swarmed its streets.

“Now!” Kairos shouted from above, his [Speech 3]-enhanced voice carrying across the battlefield.

And explosions answered his command.

Spells and flaming arrows activated selectively placed fire rods, blasting off a fifth of the city. Flames spread between the outer and inner walls, consuming Moros. The wooden structures were quickly overwhelmed, districts catching fire in minutes.

The city burnt, and the undead with it.

Having retreated to the inner walls, the amazon riders were spared from the devastation. But the undead had occupied the town, their numbers so great that they cluttered the streets. The flames consumed them, ashes closing narrow paths and preventing them from escaping. Though spells probably granted them [Fire Resistance], much like with Orthia’s fleet, resistant didn’t mean immune.

The flames and explosion made even the mighty Heracles stumble. Medea seized her chance, ordering her dragon to fall down on the giant, claws, and fangs extended.

The winged beast bit off Heracles’ throat and his left arm, but the undead giant retaliated with a swing of his cub. The weapon shattered the dragon’s skull into a bloody paste, slaying the beast in one blow and sending Medea flying. The [Demigoddess] floated by her own power, and retaliated with more spells.

The witch created two copies of herself, though whether they were illusions or true doubles Kairos couldn’t tell. One carried Thalestris beyond the walls to safety, while the others attacked the Eidolon of Heracles; the first with fireballs brighter and larger than anything Andromache ever summoned, the second with icicles as large as houses.

The witch-queen’s assault had given the hydra an opening. The reptilian monster tackled Heracles and ripped off his remaining fingers, preventing the giant from lifting his club. Though the undead created shockwaves each time his feet furiously hit the ground, he couldn’t protect himself from the hydra’s countless heads anymore. Two grew where Heracles had one removed, burying him beneath their sheer mass, while Medea summoned ghostly chains to bind the son of Zeus’ ankles.

They… they might actually win.

From afar, Kairos saw Jason climb down from the Argo alongside his elite guard. The undead captain led a second force through the flames, intending to march through the flames of Tartarus itself to reach his wounded wife. Most were undead horsemen who rode cadaverous corpses and other monstrosities.

Kairos and Rook immediately moved to reinforce the Foresight, to defeat the undead Cyclops before the rest of Jason’s armies could reach them. But as he and the Stymphalian birds flew over burning houses and charred corpses, a powerful note echoed from below.

Hearing it infuriated Kairos on a deep, primal level, filling him with rage. The music sounded like Uncle Panos’ final rattle, Lysander’s lightning striking the Foresight, and the noise of Jason’s bident slaying Rhadamanthe. It made Kairos want to kill something, anything—

[Berserk] Resisted.

Kairos cleared his mind, but Rook let out a furious screech.

“No, Rook!” Kairos attempted to reason with his griffin, but the furious pet almost threw him off his back. Gone were the kindness and joy from Rook’s eyes. A raging fury possessed him, clouding his mind. The [Berserk] ailment drove those affected by it to raging madness, making them unable to distinguish friend from foe.

Rook attempted to twist his head and peck Kairos’ leg, but didn’t have the reach to do so. “Rook, calm down!” The Travian captain protested, but when the griffin failed to get rid of his rider, he started chasing the Stymphalian birds in the vicinity. Horace let out a screech as Rook went after him.

Kairos managed to twist the winds around Rook to slow him down, giving his winged allies time to escape. But the maddened griffin sound found new targets: the undead and living clashing beneath Moros’ inner walls. Rook screamed and raged and shouted as he fell upon them, claws extended.

Realizing he couldn’t risk an uncontrolled fall in these conditions, Kairos cut off the chains keeping him attached to the saddle with his weapon, and then jumped. Much like Jason did during the first confrontation, the Travian captain pointed the [Anemoi Spear] at the ground midfall and unleashed a burst of wind. Though he barely managed to control his trajectory and scoffed after breathing a cloud of smoke, Kairos landed on the ground safely.

Kairos took a moment to observe his surroundings. Rook had landed them near a brick plaza before the inner walls, the fires spreading through the nearby houses and choking the air with searing ash. The Travian [Hero] could only hear the song and scream of steel clashing. Sellswords fought rotting undead and skeletal Spartoi in a bloody, chaotic melee, and Rook’s arrival had only worsened things. The maddened griffin had landed amidst the chaos, sending the living and the dead flying with his claws. Kairos could see the Foresight’s shadow fighting one of the Cyclops through the smoke, while amazon archers on the walls tried to kill the undead without accidentally hitting their allies.

Two Eidolons singled Kairos out, leaving their thralls to deal with his griffin and soldiers. A pale, sad-looking man who seemed to be in deep mourning, playing a silver lyre shining under the red moonlight; and a huntress with a golden bow. Purple shades wreathed her like a veil, preventing Kairos from seeing her face, and when she raised her weapon a shining arrow materialized between the arc and the bowstring.

Orpheus and Atalanta. The former had probably maddened Rook.

Kairos’ hand reached for his pocket, and the gemstone which Andromache gave him in Themiscyra, calling for help. He didn’t wait for feedback, as the undead [Heroes] were soon upon him and he needed both his hands to protect himself.

Atalanta fired the arrow at Kairos so fast that the Travian could barely see the projectile. Only the pirate’s reflexes saved him from death, as he instinctually raised his left hand to protect his head. The arrow went through his palm, causing sharp pain as the tip stopped within an inch of the face. A second too late would have spelled certain death.

Grinding his teeth at the pain, Kairos raised his spear one-handed to deflect a second arrow with a wall of wind, then a third. Atalanta kept him on the backfoot, giving him no time to rest. And when the pirate tried to turn [Invisible], the legendary huntress still tracked him down. Soon, the rain of projectiles forced Kairos back against the inner wall, and his foot slipped on the entrails of a disemboweled soldier. He fell on his left, losing his [Invisibility] veil; the pain in his wounded hand flared up again as it hit the warm ground, making the Travian groan.

“Captain!” Kairos heard Nessus shouting from the side, alongside the sound of the Foresight’s legs smashing through stones. But they were too far away, while Atalanta raised her bow for a coup de grâce.

With the strength of despair, Kairos raised his spear and unleashed a mini-tornado in her direction. Atalanta leaped aside, the wind hitting a half-dead minotaur behind her, and pulled her bowstring. The golden arrow hit the brick wall behind Kairos, barely missing his throat.

The Foresight’s captain rose to his feet by using his spear as an improvised cane, while Orpheus strung his lyre.

There wasn’t a word to describe the pain Kairos felt at this moment. It seemed as if his very bones vibrated to the song’s tune, alongside the brick wall behind him. All noises around the pirate were drowned by the tune, his ears bleeding. His body trembled, yet he couldn’t lift a finger.

Severe [Deafened] and [Paralyzed] ailments!

And as Kairos stood in place helpless, Atalanta reloaded.

A pillar of flames hit the huntress from the side, the blast sending her flying halfway across the plaza. Though he couldn’t turn his head, let alone hear, Kairos watched on as Andromache’s shadow appeared at the edge of his vision, her tentacles wriggling with rage and her scepter sparkling with flames. Agron led a charge of men and minotaurs on foot, all of them carrying swords and axes. They poured into the plaza in a savage tide and took the Orpheus Eidolon by surprise.

The Travian left wing was closing on the undead, trapping them between their swords and the inner walls. A hammer beating an anvil. Or in Agron’s case, an executioner’s axe falling down on a prisoner's neck.

Orpheus didn’t run fast enough.

Agron’s fiery axe cut the musician’s Eidolon in half from the skull down. It reminded Kairos of a woodsman chopping wood, except the ‘wood’ in question collapsed into grave dirt and ashes. Orpheus only left his silver lyre behind.

The undead’s swift destruction lifted the [Berserk] effect affecting Rook, and Kairos regained his hearing. He almost collapsed to his knee, but a tentacle caught him by the shoulder.

“Kairos,” Andromache whispered to him, her voice a faint echo. She lowered her human torso, her soft fingers brushing against his left hand.

“No, don’t,” said Kairos. Tearing off the arrow’s tip would take out half his hand as well. “I’ll… bear it. Atalanta?”

“Burnt and crushed,” the Scylla answered, while Agron roared in victory as his men tore the remaining undead to pieces. Atalanta’s remains had turned to dust, as the Foresight finally reached the plaza and crushed her corpse underfoot. On the deck, Nessus and Thales manned the ballistae, while archers finished the undead stragglers.

“I…” Rook looked around himself, drenched in blood and surrounded with corpses. Kairos couldn’t count them all, or even distinguish his own soldiers from Jason’s. Everyone looked the same in death. The horror reminded him of the fight with Orthia, but the pirate had grown numb to these sights by now. “What happened?”

“You went mad like Heracles,” Horace chided him from above, making circles in the skies. “Chief, the meat is casting spells!”

Kairos could sense it in the air. An invisible tension spreading through the skies, an oh-so-familiar feeling.

“Retreat!” Kairos shouted in panic, his booming voice echoing through the plaza. “Retreat behind the walls! It’s a spell bombardment!”

Thankfully, his people listened, but they didn’t retreat in good order. The amazons flung the inner walls’ gates open to let the Travians through, and the now destroyed Cyclops had created a hole in them. The Foresight simply stepped through, while Andromache caught Kairos in a tentacle and followed.

The foot soldiers’ retreat was far less organized. Unlike Rook and the Stymphalian birds, men couldn’t fly over fortifications. Instead, they trampled one another in their mad rush to get behind the walls, the stampede crushing the unlucky few who stumbled on the way. Kairos watched on as the crowd turned flooded through the gates, crushing skulls underfoot. How many perished in that chaotic dash the Travian captain couldn’t tell. Dozens, hundreds?

The Travian army moved to the bottom of the temple’s stairs, regrouping with the amazons. Andromache put Kairos back on the ground, while the Foresight loomed protectively over them like a mother hen. Thousands of men and women had gathered behind the fortifications, a chaotic mess struggling to get back in formation.

“Shield walls and lines!” General Petra ordered her troops from atop her horse, her spear drenched in blood. Kairos noticed witches carrying Achlys’ two queens to safety, one in a worse condition than the other. Thalestris was covered in blood and carried by four women; the amazon was in such a sorry state, that Kairos wondered if she still lived. Medea only seemed to have a broken left leg, an Empusa helping her stand. Though she had survived her fight with Heracles to Kairos’ sorrow, it hadn’t been unscathed.

“Where’s the hydra?” Kairos asked General Petra.

“Left beyond the walls,” the Achlysian commander replied. “She grew so many heads that her body can no longer support her weight.”

At least she might live through this fight. Kairos couldn’t say the same for Thalestris, whose situation struck him as critical. “And Heracles?”

“Buried beneath stones, shadow chains, and your reptilian friend, but we lost far, far too many—” General Petra stopped, as lights appeared in the skies. The Stymphalian birds screeched and dispersed.

“Incoming!” Rook shouted, quickly retreating to the temple’s roof.

A hundred purple spheres crossed the firestorm and rained down from the heavens. On the Foresight, Nessus ordered the crew to hide below deck, while Andromache shielded Kairos with her body as she did back in Histria.

The magical barrage hit Moros’ inner walls like a volley of spears, exploding on contact. Amazon archers who hadn’t managed to climb them down quickly enough were vaporized, the blasts sending rubble flying in all directions. The witches of Achlys summoned shining bright wards of light to protect their own, though they were too few to cover the entire battle line. Medea’s barrier, though, was larger than all of her coven’s combined.

The living raised metal and oaken shields to protect themselves, though some boulders crushed them anyway. They splattered a few people like insects, but the rest held; one might have hit Kairos and Andromache, but the Foresight protected them with one armored leg. The Travian captain had to use his spear to disperse a dust cloud before it could swallow them.

When at long last the bombardment ended, the walls had collapsed. Kairos could only see a burning sea of flames beyond the rubble, alongside the terrible vision of hundreds of corpses burning. Besides the noise of wood cracking and embers flaring, one could hear the sound of hooves hitting the ground.

The amazons and Travians had formed a long shield wall. The Foresight stood at the formation’s front, with Kairos, Andromache, Agron, Petra, and many others on the ground. Archers raised their bows, while atop the Foresight’s deck men and women did the same with fire rods.

A cold, ghostly wind blew the flames and smoke away, opening a path ahead for the undead cavalry. Not all of them rode horses. Some were carried by skeletal elephants, or rotting manticores. Others used stranger mounts Kairos had never seen before. And worse, half a dozen Cyclops and undead giants followed in the riders’ wake, tall and terrible.

Jason led from the front atop a fiery horse, his ghoulish skull grinning upon glimpsing Medea. Kairos could almost taste his bloodlust. The brothers Castor and Pollux rode at his sides, alongside a cadre of armored Eidolons the Travian didn’t recognize. The witches’ wards collapsed at their approach, shattered by an invisible force.

Instead of smashing through the living’s battlelines at the risk of getting impaled on the spears raised before them, the undead army assembled calmly adopted a large formation. As their lines stretched on, Kairos realized that the numbers were roughly even on both sides; two walls of bodies facing one another.

For merciful seconds, the two sides watched each other, wolves sizing each other up. The silence was agonizing, and yet Jason didn’t order his troops to attack. Instead, he gazed at Persephone’s temple, wary and cautious.

The revenant could sense the ritual taking place within these walls, and it made him feel uncertain.

The assaults and flames had dimmed the undead horde, but not enough to guarantee victory. Thalestris was unconscious, perhaps dying, the hydra too wounded to fight, the dragon dead, and Medea craven and wounded. Cassandra hadn’t emerged from the temple’s closed gates, so the ritual was nowhere near finished. Maybe the living’s forces could prevail in a straight fight, but not without a terrible cost.

Kairos had to stall.

“The Whore of Colchis certainly loves to burn cities,” Jason declared, his gaze focused on Kairos. The undead might have looked kingly from atop his undead horse, if he still had flesh. His black ram fleece of a cloak blew to the ash-filled wind. “Though in this case, this reeks of calculation rather than madness. It was your doing, [Rogue], isn’t it? But no matter your cunning, you are fighting for the wrong side.”

General Petra raised his spear, imitated by her soldiers. “You’re the one who attacked us first! We did you no wrong!”

“Then return my wife to my loving hands.” Jason pointed his bident at Medea, who glared back. “Give me the whore to drown, and I swear to sink into the sea peacefully, never to rise again. Justice will be served.”

“The only justice you will taste is my fingers ripping out your foul heart!” the witch-queen snarled, her fingernails crackling with magic.

For a second, it seemed as if the sun itself had risen within Medea’s hands. A mighty ray of solar energy erupted from her fingers, blinding everyone glancing at her. The following blast blew the four nearest people around Medea back, including the witch that had helped her mistress stand.

Jason didn’t even flinch. Instead, the light died out within one meter of the Argo’s captain, extinguished by ghostly darkness. The blast hit some of his undead troops though, vaporizing dozens of them. Minotaurs, giants, the light returned the undead to the dust from which they came.

All but the only one who mattered.

Kairos suspected the [Witch Hunter] subclass, before realizing a normal Skill should never have been able to counter a [Demigoddess]’ magic. It had to be Jason’s [Legend]. So great was his fury at Medea, that it granted the [Witchpyre] a full-blown immunity to magic itself. No spell could harm the revenant warlord, or his mount.

And then Jason retaliated.

Medea screamed in pain as her hands caught fire, as ghostly flames melted the flesh off her fingers and left only bones behind. The sunlight died out, and new undead quickly filled the holes left by the blast in the vanguard.

Many of the amazon archers lowered their bows in shock. Kairos could see despair spread through their ranks, as they watched their witch-queen’s power fail her at this crucial moment.

“This is useless, my love,” Jason told his vengeful wife, though there was no warmth in his words. “If your spells could have sent me back to the Underworld, they would have by now. Your reckoning has come.”

“Perhaps our queen deserves punishment,” General Petra agreed, “but we shall be the only judge of that. Giving up our ruler to an enemy would be tantamount to surrender and cowardice.”

And most importantly, not all Achlysians agreed. Kairos could see it in their eyes. Though most amazons had lost all respect for their witch-queen, many would refuse to give in to the undead army. The witches would defend their mistress to the bitter end.

“You fail to appreciate,” Jason said while slamming the ground with his bident, fire crisping at the fork, “that I have at my back a force you cannot hope to defeat. Can’t you see it is hopeless? I am her Nemesis, her judgment. If that wicked whore hadn’t committed grievous sins, the gods would not have let me rise.”

“You brought your undeath on yourself,” Andromache said with contempt. “Your pain is rooted in your ungratefulness.”

“You think this is what it is about, nymph?” Jason let out a hiss, his worm tongue twisting like a snake. “I had more than ten centuries to ponder my deeds. I broke my vow to Hera, to take Medea as my wife and love her forever. For that, my happiness was taken away. I was the architect of my own fall, I will not deny it.”

“Then why?” Kairos asked, though he had already guessed the answer.

“For my children!” he snarled back, his bident red with ghostfire. “For Corinthe’s children, burnt in that witch’s flames! For all the people she led astray since! This wicked woman’s hands are drenched in innocent blood, and her victims’ wails raised me from my grave! The dead will have their tribute!”

“You took everything from me!” Medea hissed, her eyes bloodshot with wrath. She looked more like a Fury than a queen now, her face twisted in anger. “My throne, my brother, my children, my honor! You deserve that pain!”

“I will not deny your wife needs to die,” Kairos admitted, Medea and her coven glaring at him. “But I will protect my people, and my hosts.”

“Then you will die,” the undead replied, the Polydeukes adopting fighting stances, the dead raising their swords and shields. Agron let out a roar, and the living did the same.

“At my signal—” General Petra began, but never finished.

Kairos seized the moment.

“No blood need be shed but ours,” the Travian declared with his spear raised at the Argo’s captain, his voice carrying through the battlefield like thunder. “Fight me alone, Jason of Iolcus, one-on-one. If you win and I perish, the oath I made to Achlys’ queens will be undone, and my army will stop fighting you to return home.”

Kairos did his best to ignore the gasps and whispers behind him. “Traitor!” Medea snarled. “Traitor!”

Even Andromache was at a loss of words. “Kairos, what are you doing?”

Delaying, he thought, and saving lives.

“Have you forgotten our last encounter, mortal?” Jason asked, looking down at Kairos with contempt. “Or have you left your wits at sea? You cannot defeat me.”

“I can,” Kairos lied through his teeth, blood dripping from his left hand, “and once I do, you leave this town alone. You crawl back to whatever hole from which you came.”

“Not without her head,” Jason rasped while glaring at his wife.

“Then hunt her another night, but leave this country alone,” Kairos argued, praying that his [Charisma] and diplomatic Skills would reach through to Jason’s cold dead heart. “Your wife already burned that bridge, you can see it in their eyes. She will be forced to run from this place, like all the others before, unable to find peace.”

“You take me for a young man, foolishly led astray.”

“I thought of you as a brave warrior, though I may have been mistaken.”

The taunt rattled Jason to the bone, but he kept a clear head. “This is a trick. You know you cannot slay me, so you stall.” The undead captain’s skull glared at Persephone’s temple behind them. “Something is happening inside these walls, I can feel it. Something you believe will carry the day, enough that you are willing to lay down your life.”

“I lay down my life for my countrymen,” Kairos replied. If Cass couldn’t succeed, then he would perish, but the captain had an unshakeable faith in his first mate. “I promised my crew I would return them home alive. Whether I die or not in the attempt does not matter.”

He sensed their eyes looking down from the Foresight. For whatever his faults as a captain might be, Kairos of Travia kept his word.

General Petra’s eyes shifted from Kairos to the temple behind them, and she quickly put the two and two together. “Fine,” she said laconically.

One of her soldiers, an aide-de-camp perhaps, looked up at her as if she had lost her mind. “Milady, you cannot—”

“Let them fight, if Her Majesty wishes,” General Petra replied, turning to Medea. “What are your orders?”

After a moment of silence, Jason glanced at his wounded wife. “I suppose you won’t fight your own battle, my love? Or perhaps you will try to teleport away?”

Medea’s hateful eyes glanced between Kairos and Jason, whom she both wanted gone. She could have stopped everything now, or at least proven herself worthy of her queenship. If there was a sliver of bravery left in her, now was the time for it to emerge. She could have dueled Jason herself for her island’s sake.

But in the end, her hate won out.

“Kairos of Travia is our guest,” Medea said. “His duty is to defend his host. Let him be my champion.”

Her words rang hollow, and even General Petra spat on the ground. The Empusas said nothing, while the amazons’ eyes turned disdainful.

Even if Kairos perished, Medea’s power over Achlys had waned. No one would serve a ruler too craven to fight their own battles.

“As I expected,” Jason said with contempt, before focusing back on Kairos. “Whatever trick you prepare will not change tonight’s outcome. Queen Persephone herself shall not let me pass on until my wife dies first, and sunrise is hours away. But I will honor your last request.”

The undead captain climbed down from his horse, and swung his fiery bident.

There was still an ember of honor left in these old bones.

“Anyone who tries to interfere, I shall slay,” Jason warned, before glaring at Medea. “And if you teleport away, my love, then I will turn this whole island into a charnel pit. The stench of the dead will choke even the heavens above.”

Kairos let out a breath of relief. “So we shall fight with our Legendary Weapons?”

“Only our spears,” Jason said, chuckling darkly. “That living ship of yours will not interfere, trickster.”

“Well, it was worth a shot,” Kairos replied with a forced grin. He would have preferred to bring a living ship to a spear fight, but Jason was honorable, not stupid. “But fine.”

“No, Kairos!” Rook landed at his friend’s side, claws extended. “Let me fight! I’m the nest’s eldest!”

“Oh my captain, stay back and I’ll skewer that ghost!” Nessus shouted from atop the Foresight, raising his bow. “I’ve got the range!”

“Let me claim that ghost’s [Legend],” Agron said, raising his fiery axe. “Agron Ghostslayer, they will call me.”

“My other half, you are down an arm,” Andromache hissed, though behind the anger Kairos felt her concern. “You cannot defeat him.”

“I know,” Kairos whispered, glancing at the temple’s closed gates. “But Cass can.”

The Scylla’s eyes squinted in disapproval. “Do you trust her that much?”

Kairos answered with a nod, and his mistress didn’t stop him as he took a step forward. “I’m sorry,” he told his men, raising his spear with his right hand, “but I gave my word.”

Jason whispered something in ancient Greek, and a greenish, ectoplasmic ring of energy formed around the two warriors. Swirling, wailing ghosts flew in a tornado more than ten meters in diameter, as tall as a mighty tower. A thin layer of ash and dust covered the ground below the duelers’ feet, while the living and the dead watched on in silence.

Kairos had expected words of encouragement, but none dared to speak as he and Jason started circling another. Rook gulped; the Stymphalian birds had landed on the Foresight’s deck to watch the duel from a vantage point; and Andromache looked at the duel with a strained face. The tension in the air was palpable, everyone holding their breath.

Jason charged without warning, and Kairos ran away.

The Argo’s captain was faster and caught up quickly, his bident surging forward. A clash of their weapons would send Kairos flying back against the barrier, so the Travian leaped to the side. No sooner did he move that Jason closed the gap, the undead moving swifter than a lynx.

“Will you run until you circle the world?” Jason taunted him. “Do you hope to take me from behind that way?”

“You will never see it coming,” Kairos deadpanned, barely avoiding a strike to the throat.

“This is useless,” Jason said, though his tone lacked any form of mockery. If anything, he sounded sad. “You are wounded. Even at your best, I am twenty levels higher, stronger, faster.”

“Perhaps,” Kairos agreed, pointing his spear at the ground. “But you are a [Fighter], and I am a [Rogue].”

He unleashed a wind blast at the ashen soil, blowing a cloud of dust at Jason. Then he sneakily moved to his foe’s left and struck.

As he had guessed, though Jason could see through invisibility spells, the dust left him blind. Neither could he hear Kairos with his [Sneak 3] Skill. He had the sense to protect his torso and head with his arm, but the Travian’s spear aimed for the left knee. The metal tip clashed with yellow bones, and the latter yielded.

The blow cut the leg in half, though Jason quickly used his bident to regain his balance. Kairos swiped the severed leg aside and tossed it at the barrier. The bones turned to dust on impact, and the ghosts wailed. The living spectators let out a cry of surprise, and Jason unleashed a burst of flames.

Kairos quickly formed a shield of wind to deflect the fire, the dust falling down to reveal a furious Jason. “You are honorless but daring,” the undead said, “I will grant you that.”

“I may have been better at hindsight than foresight lately,” Kairos admitted. “But I always knew when to seize opportunities.”

“You know you cannot slay me, so you try to immobilize me,” Jason replied, ripping out a rib and putting it in his missing leg’s place. His balance was shaky, his footwork slower. “To tear away my body parts one by one. But you have lost too much blood, and the night is long.”

He had a point, unfortunately. The arrow kept drawing blood from Kairos’ left hand, and the Travian was slower than at the battle’s beginning. His heart pumped blood in his veins still, but how long until fatigue took its toll?

Kairos unleashed bursts of wind at his foe, targeting the undead’s left. Though magic couldn’t harm Jason, the blowback should repel him. But a broken leg only compensated for the revenant’s insane [Agility], and he danced around the attacks without much effort. Once again the undead lunged at his living rival, and once again Kairos fell back.

The Travian [Hero] wisely denied Jason the opportunity of a melee. Each time the bident’s fork threatened to skewer him he leaped to the side, using wind blasts to strike from a distance. It was a tiring dance, Kairos feeling his breath shortening, his legs weakening. But he held his ground.

He tried to blow dust and blind Jason twice more, but the Argo’s captain had grown wise and constantly stayed on the move, never giving his rival an opening. Eventually, Jason started retaliating with ghostfire blasts of his own.

“How long will you keep this up?” Jason asked, annoyed. Unlike his living counterpart, he didn’t tire. His movements were as swift and powerful as the first clash, his flames searing hot. “Even if you win, I will rise again the next night. No magic is powerful enough to seal me, and my viper of a wife will not honor any bargain you have struck with her.”

“I have danced with death half a dozen times,” Kairos answered, his vision blurring from the fatigue and exhaustion. He wouldn’t keep this up much longer. “And left many ghosts in his wake, friend or foe.”

“I see why you chose a hydra for a flag,” Jason mused. Instead of replying, Kairos charged at the undead, surprising him. The Argo’s captain swiftly raised his bident and unleashed a fireball from the tip. But though Kairos deflected it with wind, the clash threw him back.

The Travian quickly realized that the undead had altered the terrain attack after attack: Jason’s ghostly flames surrounded him from the right and the left. The undead had carefully set the arena ablaze to reduce his foe’s mobility, leaving only a narrow corridor on which to walk safely. Jason raised his bident, with Kairos having nowhere to run.

Fork at the front, flames on the sides, death in both cases. Charybdis and Scylla.

“Farewell, Kairos of Travia.” Jason lunged forward faster than the eyes could follow, bident first. “You fought bravely, but this is the end.”

Instead of answering, Kairos slammed the ground with his [Anemoi Spear] and unleashed a burst of compressed air. The wind threw him above ground, above the bident and the undead captain. Jason raised his head in shock, as his living counterpart used his own tactic against him.

“It is,” Kairos said, as he thrust his weapon in midair. “For you.”

If he could have guided the spear with both hands, Kairos might have struck true. But his aim failed him, and he missed Jason’s shoulder. When the Travian landed on the ground, the undead had repositioned himself, the two duelists facing one another.

“Facing you takes me back…” Jason admitted with a hint of bloodlust, bident raised for a final blow. Kairos tried to keep his spear at the same height, but it was a struggle to stand. Colors vanished at the edge of the Travian’s eyes, as the fork moved closer, piercing the air. This time, he wouldn’t dodge.

He didn’t need to.

The temple of Persephone’s gates flung open, and a ghastly wail came out.

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A/N: chapter made possible by you, dear patrons.