Forgotten prophecy

Chapter 64

He should have anticipated that Tartarus's lair would have been guarded, particularly since the captured demigods were still there. Nonetheless Ryker had not considered the idea. He stood on a patch of jagged rock overlooking the small horde of monsters milling about in front of a large palace that seemed to be made out of flesh. Water pulsed through the walls like blood and the floor looked to be unsteady at best. "Well, looks like this is where I leave you." Erebus told Ryker, a note of regret in his voice.

Ryker glanced over to the god, frowning. "You aren't going to help me out at all here?" He asked, slightly disbelievingly. That much he had expected. The primordial god had a habit of being helpful and yet unhelpful at the same time.

"Afraid not." Erebus chuckled. "I look forward to seeing how you handle this. This is goodbye, Ryker. When you make it to Elysium, if you make it, I will send transportation for you to return to the surface with your army. Good luck, Ryker." And without another word the primordial god vanished on the spot, leaving the son of Cybele alone in Tartarus.

Any other demigod would have, most likely, been swept up in a momentary surge of panic upon realizing that they were alone in perhaps the most dangerous place in the world. But Ryker took solace in the solitude. He took a deep breath and surveyed the assembled monsters once more, summoning his bow as he did so. They'll be inside that palace. He thought quietly, drawing back the bowstring and focusing on an ogre. First things first, I need to get inside.

Before the first arrow had even embedded into the ogre Ryker had sent a dozen more shadowy shafts arcing after it, raining down on the unsuspecting monsters. Each arrow that he fired hit its target and the monster crumbled away, presumably to reappear somewhere else in Tartarus. Ryker slowly began his descent down the jagged stone mountain, hopping lightly from foothold to foothold, while keeping up a constant stream of arrows hailing down on the monsters. It did not take long for the monsters to locate their aggressor and they moved to attack him as one. But it was not a short distance between the demigod and the monsters. And Ryker's volley of arrows was endless. Monster after monster fell as they charged him, desperate to stop the arrows. By the time the first monster, a karpos, reached him, half of the monsters had been reduced to dust. But if the monsters had expected some sort of reprieve after reaching Ryker, they were sorely mistaken. The second that the bow disappeared, Ryker's claws appeared. They went to work with such precision and savagery that the monsters quickly regretted their decision to approach the demigod. The bow would have been quicker. Ryker's claws were far more painful, and his constant laughter were unsettling to even the oldest of the creatures.

After only thirty minutes the monsters that had been guarding the palace were all dust. Ryker, chuckling all the while, strolled into the palace. He was covered in gore and ichor and that combined with his reckless grin would have even given the gods pause. But it was not a god that was waiting for him right inside the palace, lounging in a throne-like chair. It wasn't even a monster. In fact, the figure in the chair was all too familiar, even if he had not seen her in a very long time.

"Silver." Ryker breathed.

"Oh, you know me then?" She laughed, swinging her feet off of the chair and slowly rising. At her side hung two long knives that seemed to have a sinister red glow all of their own. "Sorry, your face doesn't ring a bell. And you are?"

The confession of not knowing Ryker brought him out of the reverie he had temporarily found himself in and he quickly shook it off. "Don't worry about it." He said, his grin slowly returning. "It won't matter in a few seconds."

"Oh, a fighter!" Silver beamed at him in genuine pleasure, an expression that he had never seen on the actual Silver's face. It was a look of equal part savagery and happiness, one that made even his own reckless grin pale in comparison. "Good, it has been so boring just sitting around here and watching these prisoners. Even torturing that one who looks like me is getting a bit old."