Pure Requiem - Aja James Page 0,69

monster’s front and scaling up its torso with their blades.

Medusa howls so loudly, rocks fall loose from the surrounding hills.

I do not know if the Pure and Dark Ones do any real damage or are simply annoying her, but they seem to be making progress. While they are on one of the heads and on the monster’s body, it cannot turn its poison and fire upon itself. Perhaps they will find a vulnerable spot, most likely between the eyes or underneath the scales at the back of its head.

One can only hope and pray at this juncture. Goddesses help us all!

It’s then that Rhys takes giant eagle form with Tal in his claws, flying the General directly above the right hydra head.

I would have missed what happens next if I blinked.

I’m eternally glad I didn’t.

Chapter Fifteen: Within The Sound Of Silence

*TAL*

One shot is all I have. One slice is all it takes.

When the eagle warrior flies me over the hydra’s right head, I know it is her.

Medusa.

I do not comprehend this monstrous form she’s in, but I can sense that there is more than one consciousness inhabiting it. I do not recognize the left head. Whoever or whatever is inside it is a stranger to me.

I focus only on my nemesis.

I feel her giant serpent head lurching in my direction as she senses my approach. I feel the moment when she recognizes me, because she swallows back the poison she almost discharges from her mouth.

Just as I anticipated she would. She wants me alive.

I don’t give her long enough to wish me dead.

Upon my signal, the giant eagle releases its clasp on my shoulders. I somersault through the air, tucking my legs close to my body to increase velocity.

The serpent moves to catch me in her mouth, as I expected she would, extending her neck to reach me.

At the last possible moment, like a spinning wheel pulled suddenly back by an invisible string, I unfurl with the hilt of the laser sword grasped in both hands.

Right above her neck, close to her head, I unleash the blinding, twenty-foot laser blade, cutting through thick, metallic hide and scales, granite muscle and steel-like bone.

Her shocked, agonized scream rents the air, black poison spurting from her mouth as she tries too late to spew her hell-fire.

I use her own jaw as leverage as I kick with enough force to send my body swinging around the underside of her neck, the laser sword continuing its arc, forming a complete circle, as I loop back to the top of her head.

And then—it breaks from the rest of her body like the split of rock and ice from a mighty glacier, crashing into the lake below in a venomous splash of acid and water.

The eagle catches me from plummeting down with her, flying us just above the sinking vortex around her decapitated head.

We don’t have a moment to waste as the second head shakes itself like a great wet dog, dislodging the other warriors from its body and head, then raining fire upon the surface of the entire lake.

I hear the bodies plummet into the water. I feel the hellish heat of the hydra’s fire. I can smell the singeing of the eagle’s feathers as the wicked fiery tongues catch the edge of his tail when he doesn’t fly away fast enough.

The creature itself sinks into the lake in a cauldron of broiling bubbles, whether to pursue its attackers in the water or to lick its wounds, I do not know.

But soon, all is silent again, save the pounding of the rain upon the lake’s surface and the occasional thunder rolling through the skies.

The eagle and I land on the now deserted banks of the lake. All of the enemy soldiers have been turned to ash or dust. And if some managed to live, I do not sense their presence in the vicinity.

We wait in silence with baited breath. Where are our comrades?

Where is my family?

After what seems like an eternity, a short distance away, I hear movement in the water.

“It’s Maximus and Ariel,” the eagle warrior, Rhys, tells me what my eyes can’t see. “He’s carrying a female in his jaws. She’s alive and coughing.”

I hear her. My Ishtar.

On our other side, I hear people trudging out of the lake, their weary feet dragging.

“Two of your warriors,” Rhys explains. “One with a chained scythe, the other with a long spear.”

Cloud and Valerius. They are alive as well.

Finally, I hear the limping approach of two pairs