Medusa: Fate's Game

Chapter 11

~~Otrera~~

Patrius showed up come dawn, as promised, as did the three men. No bandages on his skin this time, not after Chimera explained it didn't help much. Once Otrera and her companions had taken a whiff of Athena's gift, they set out into the night.

Sneaking around at night was much easier with Athena's special jar of whatever to wash away the curse. She didn't like it, smelling something odorless to free her mind of some sorceress's curse. It was a lot of talk, conjecture, a lot of mysticism and magics and goddesses interfering with the things she understood: swords and flesh. She couldn't sink her weapon into a curse, she couldn't fight off magic with a shield, and she couldn't kill a god or even really defend herself from one.

It took a lot of faith to go with the flow, and trust Darian. Well, she did trust him, loath though she was to admit it. The memories of her battle sisters, her family and friends dying at his sword, it'd all taken on a new context in light of their conversations. Tragedies, and she lamented them all, but the blame she put on Darian started to fade with each passing day. They'd died in battle against a demigod, and there was no shame in that.

And if Ares was the vile and vain creature Chimera painted him as, she couldn't care less about attempting to please his desires anymore.

Gallea was sleeping in their hideaway. It was night, and the satyr was of more used to them in the day. He hadn't found anything out the day before, just that everyone in the city was frightened and refused to say why. If the city had been Amazons, everyone would have resisted the curse, and died in battle. Better that than becoming a sacrifice.

After the four of their group each took a deep breath of the jar, hopefully enough to last the night, they split. Patrius and his friends went toward the city center, and Otrera and Darian followed. Medusa and Chimera left for the city outskirts, where they would lure more manticore to their deaths. It reeked of risk. They didn't know how closely Andromeda followed her pets, how much information the cats could report, or if she even knew any had died. Perhaps the spell worked on its own, while Andromeda's mind was elsewhere? It'd be lucky if it did, and the four could operate without worry of being discovered. Luck didn't seem to be their strong suit.

The old soldier patted Otrera and Darian on the shoulder, nodded to each with a stern eye, and headed out onto the street. His companions weren't so solid, and they shivered and shook as they glanced around in the black, at the two Fate's Children, and then to the back of their savior. They followed him, and Otrera followed them. The four men knew the city, while she and Darian did not.

Relying on strangers. She didn't take well to that. Darian didn't take well to that. But at least Patrius seemed a trustworthy fellow, sort of. A nice man, but a slave to Athena's will. The two didn't necessarily go hand in hand, and every time the man had glanced Medusa's way, Otrera had been ready to cut his head off.

Outside, the cold fog continued to roll over the buildings and streets. The bazaar stalls were abandoned, the roads were quiet, and the sky began to cloud over. Seeing at night in the fog was hard enough, but as gray washed over the moon and starlight, keeping track of anyone or anything grew more difficult. It got to the point she was holding onto the tunic of the man in front of her, and Darian was holding one of the leather straps that dangled from the waist of her armor.

It was a large city, larger than Tiryns. Buildings rose tall, walls of white stone and pillars of marble. The outskirts of the city, the smaller homes, they were built with mudbrick and wood. But as they fell deeper and deeper into the tide of roofs and columns, everything changed into a colossal array of white. Temples with towering columns that held enormous roofs of alabaster, pillars ten feet wide that circled the temples, and opened before stairways as wide as the temples themselves. In Tiryns, there would be at least a few guards patrolling with torches out, and a civilian or two. These streets were as lifeless as the stone that walled them, barring the occasional large feline.