'What was that?' I asked.
'Almost there. . .just a few more miles,' Hera murmured, ignoring my question.
'Its only for a little while longer. Please. Please. Please.'
Hera was leading me to almost certain death, but I found myself leaning towards her as we run, my tireless legs working even harder to keep up.
We had passed the forest, there was nothing but a barren earth and darkness around us now – the kind of landscape that would feature in nightmares.
Strangely, I thought about Rea and wondered if she was safe. Despite the monster she was, she was still my mother's daughter.
Then I thought about Hera who was right in front of me; the person who mattered most to me right now — a deep sense of dread suddenly arose in my heart.
Before the feeling deepened, the hair rose on the back of my neck. The air around us stillled, humming with energy.
There was a blinding flare of crimson light, an ear splitting BOOM!, shockwaves so dense that I could see them condensing like vivid matter hurled me of my feet.
I remember feeling helpless, like I was in the center of an explosion, at the mercy of rampant nuclear forces.
I lifted my face from the dirt despite my ringing ears, 'Ow.'
'Mason!' Hera shouted.
'I'm okay….'
I fought back the disorientation. I was still alive. And besides my blurring vision and ringing ears I was unharmed.
Hera was also fine. There were a few twigs stuck in her hair, and her skin was covered in patches of dirt— somehow lending her a more ragged and primal beauty.
She urgently grabbed my arm. 'Mason,' she said, 'we have to…'
Her voice faltered. I looked back— regretting what my vampiric eyes allowed me to to see:
Through the darkness of the night-
I saw a several figure lumbering towards
us— closing in.
The sight of them caused my pupils to constrict.
There were three a dark silhouettes of three huge men.
They had wild red eyes, their skin— unlike most vampires was ruddy—flushed with blood .
Pairs of.....antlers?. ... no more like large horns rose above their dark hair....only these horns were unlike any Id seen on beasts. They had strange long tails as well.
Hera took a protective stand infront of me. 'Who are you?…' She asked while they strutted out of the darkness.
"Ah the scent of Uttarian blood!" The foremost of them breathed excitedly as his eyes narrowed on me— ignoring Hera's question. "The grand King —oh, yes!— he was right: 'I smell the enthralling fragrance. I hear the silent power coarsing through your veins! You are worth capturing alive! Our king has great plans for you. He will reward us greatly for your life!
We could have dystroyed the puny Uttarians already. But we feared destroying you with them— the last of your line."
"You're Servant of house Serzar," Hera guessed, just trying to keep their attention on her.
The creature smiled cruelly. "We are servants of the king. Children of Clan Serzar, yes! And we are the greatest warriors of our tribe.
I am Tonraq!"
He began.
"I am Rahu!"
The second followed.
"I am Darnok!" The last finished.
"We would enjoy killing you!" Tonraq threatened Hera with a bold smile. "But there is no call for it today. Step aside, allow us to retrieve our prize."
Hera said nothing while she assumed a defensive stance- half-crouched, canines bared - bands of steel muscle— more powerful than a hydrolic press— tensed underneath her skin .
That provoked them. "Right, protect him to you grave!" Darnok roared in outrage.
Then a tremor rippled through his body, along his shoulders and down his core.
His muscles were spasming— Veins bulging, twisting like slithering snakes beneath his skin...but even after a few breaths nothing else happend.
"Witch! what have you done!!?" Tonraq raved.
A similar shudder reverberated through his body. He threw his head back painfully, a menacing grow tearing through his teeth.
"Brothers. . . !" Rahu shouted as he fell forward, vibrations phasing rapidly through his body.
'Arrogant fools. . .' Hera sang in a pitying, almost disappointed voice. She flicked her wrist lightly. . .and the silver bracelets she always wore flashed with a starry white light.
The bracelet disappeared, and she was suddenly holding a silver longspear.
'Did you ever stop to question why I was chosen as the boy's protector?'
'Did the songs of my horror cease with my inaction?' She murmured softly this time, like she was talking to herself.
'Or did you think that because you're shifting was a function of your evolved physiology instead of a meta ability, I would not be able to stop it ...??' She laughed.
'When one of your kind transforms. . . ' She begun. 'To avoid burning through all your essential chemical energy reserves. The transformation taps into the meta energy stored within your cells.
'My two eyes are the bane of all meta energy.' Her words drew my attention to her eyes finally: her irises emitted a vibrant scarlet light.
Was that what was causing them pain?
Her vampiric trait?
Looking at Hera now— donning a warlike figure as she faced three foes by her lonesome — I couldn't help the direction of my thoughts:
She . . . really is a goddess... I thought in amazement. My panic and fear evaporated in the light of her Valor.
Unfortunately. . .. our enemies were not impressed.
The one called Rahu growled at Rea. 'We do not need our great forms to kill you!! You have only earned for yourself a slower, more painful death!'
Their trembling stopped.
"Silly to waste so much energy resisting a fate you cannot avoid!"
Tonraq growled as the three charged us.
Hera promptly responded, and the death match begun.
The three Serzar were strong indeed— lethal. As they fought, they morphed into streaking blurs my eyes could no longer catch.
Great BOOMS!! and sickening crackles reverberated through space whenever they clashed with Hera.
My eyes anxiously searched the collisions for her figure, but they were moving too fast for me to see who was making the mistakes. . . .
I could only vividly see them in the brief instances where they traded blows.
Rahu bellowed and launched a massive
right-handed blow towards Hera while is brothers shadowed him.
—But with no more substance than a mere ghost— she twisted in a backwards somersault– appearing behind him and returning the blow just as ferociously with her spear.
The strike caught Rahu full in his broad back.
Rahu's large huge body arced through space and crashed into the hardened earth with a force that seemed to shake the whole
Landscape— creating a miniature dust cloud.
"No!" Tonraq an Darnok cried in tandem, their booming voices shuddering in disbelief.
They charged Hera together — their earlier playfullness and arrogance gone.
I could still only see three speeding blurs blitzing across the ground, but the increasingly frequent grating tears and sickening crunches, the painful gasps and shocked hissings, made it clear that someone had begun to lose.
But before before I could figure out who. . . the dust cleared and I locked eyes with Rahu, though he looked miserably deformed - he hunched and wobbled— his body wracked with pain - Still I could see a fiendish smile flash across his cruel features.
He tensed and sprang.
A pale streak whistled through the air and slammed into him mid-flight. The impact sounded like a missile detonation, and it burst though his chest like a flower of blood - stabbing into the ground.
Relief washed over my heart when I saw what the object was: it was Hera's spear.
"Brother," Darnok and Tonraq yelled, their voices desperate.
The halted their attacks and flew towards us like the arrow from a bow.
But Hera was faster - a living lightning bolt.
Nearly invisible with speed - her figure flashed like a mirage, teloporting to Rahu's unprotected back.
She planted her foot against the base of his neck while her palm closed around the shaft of the spear that run through his body, she heaved -
It was deafening— like tempered steal being ripped apart.
And then with an eruption of blood, his head was no longer connected to the rest of his body. The decapitated head fell to the ground with a thud, and bounced once before rolling to a stop.
'Murderer!' Darnok came barreling forward with the force of a freight train. Hera parried him with her spear, but the sheer momentum of the collision sent them both crashing into a small hill.
'Hera!' I yelled reflexively in concern.
'Heh.' The one called Tonraq sneered. He was covered in scrapes and gashes that bled dark red liquid: 'You should worry about yourself first!'
He stretched out his palm and smoking red rod appeared in it – It released acrid green fumes, and it sparked with volatile energy.
'We had originally wanted to follow our kings order and capture you alive...' Darnok admitted.
'But since your gaurdian dared to kill our brother.' He growled.
'You can perish as well!'
His features were distorted with malice as he threw the rod.
And I was. . .completely and utterly helpless as it came streaking towards me.