Vol.5 Ch.16.2 – Turncoat II

“You want a hug?” I asked Ares. He had just admitted that the traitor god had managed to kill him but even so I couldn't bring myself to feel any sympathy for him. The fact that this god had managed to kill Ares was concerning but still, Ares was a piece of shit and I had been quite happy to see him and the bad guy trying to murder each other. “Or do you want to get back into the fight?”

He refused to acknowledge my barbs in any way but I could feel him trembling. Provoking him was a dangerous game to play. If he decided that he hated me more than the invaders then things could turn ugly real quick. But he simply said: “When I went back to where he killed me he was already gone. So I figured that if I find you I'll run into him again eventually.”

Fair enough. I didn't much like the idea of the traitor god being free to do as he pleased but scouring all of Olympus for the bastard was pointless when we were on our way to recruit reinforcements instead.

“So, Artemis?” he asked.

“How the fuck do you know where Artemis is being held?” I asked, suspicion plain in my voice.

“Because I saw her being tied up here while they dragged me off to my tholos?” he asked, his tone annoyed. “Stars above, Tailor, if I was a traitor I'd have shoved my sword up your ass and railed all your women already.” He considered. “Actually, I might still do that once we're done here. But for now I need you to draw the traitorous bastard out.”

It was nice to see that he liked me as much as I liked him.

Thankfully he shut up after that, letting me appreciate just how horrid Olympus now looked. We hadn't seen much of it on the landing platform and while the tholoi had contained horrific scenes they hadn't really shown the true scale of this assault. But as we moved down the streets of the main plateau we saw it all.

The sides of the buildings were splattered with blood. Half-eaten corpses rotted openly in the streets. A couple of times a group of particularly stupid goblins rushed out of houses to attack us and were dispatched so quickly I refused to call these encounters fights.

Nobody deserved this. The Olympians, or most of them, were horrible people, I would never deny that. And Wilhelm hadn't been entirely wrong. The mortals on Mount Olympus, Saints and Saint candidates one and all, were in a way responsible for all this. Their worship was a huge part of what kept the Olympians as powerful as they were. When they went out into the mortal world they spread the gospel of these gods, convincing more and more to make them stronger. They were, in a very real way, the true source of the Olympians' power. But even so they didn't deserve this. Hounded through the streets, violated, killed, eaten and then forgotten, nobody should have to go through this. If this was how the Holy Maiden intended to break the yoke of the Olympians then she was far worse than them. A cure worse than the disease.

My opinion of the situation only crystallized as we finally found where Artemis was being held. It was not a sight I would forget.

Artemis was gorgeous, the epitome of beauty, just as breathtaking as Aphrodite but so much more elusive. She had long, curly red hair down to her navel and curves worthy of a goddess. Her skin was lightly tanned, as was fitting for a goddess who spent most her days on the hunt. And even clad in her hunting attire Artemis was more gorgeous than most women could manage while fully nude.

If what Hestia had told me was true then Artemis wasn't as chaste as I had previously assumed but even so, as a man, I would never lay with her. In fact, in any other situation she would have murdered me for seeing her in this state of undress. But right now there was nothing titillating about it.

Artemis was tied to a wooden block that forced her onto her knees and elbows, making it impossible for her to resist the cruelty being visited upon her.

A group of orcs and goblins surrounded the virgin goddess and they were doing their best to sully every part of her they could reach. An orc – a regular orc mutated by the Black Goat this time, not the pale goat-orcs we had encountered so far – was rutting into her open mouth, causing her to let out obscene gurgling sounds while another forced itself into her ass. Goblins were rubbing their tiny little pricks against her hands and breasts and armpits and a few particularly sadistic ones had used their speartips to produce more holes in her supple flesh to rut into, her ichor flowing freely from the wounds. Only her crotch stayed untouched, safe for a likely enchanted piece of parchment placed over it to protect her virginity. It would have seemed like an incongruous gesture of kindness if I hadn't learned earlier that they couldn't deflower her without killing her, which would have freed her from this torment.

I knew goblins were heinous pieces of shit but this was beyond the pale. Not only were the things being done to Artemis much worse than what I'd seen with Aphrodite and Demeter, but this time orcs were involved. They normally didn't lower themselves to this kind of cruelty. Orcs, even under the control of a Dark Lord, did not do this. They killed foes. Under the control of a Dark Lord they would even eat them. But never had I seen them performing cruelty on the level of goblins.

This treatment was why female adventurers carried hidden blades and poison pills to end their own lives in case they ever got taken alive by goblins. Even my girls had them, should the worst occur.

But the sight of Artemis being violated was not what held my attention, horrid as it was. Not only because I didn't want to look at it but because there was a more pressing concern, one that needed to be dealt with before we could free her. Upon a makeshift throne sat a hooded figure, impassively watching the violation, his head resting on a balled fist in utter boredom. I supposed the horrid sight would lose its appeal after enough exposure, even to a lunatic. Most importantly, however, was the lock of stringy blond hair peeking out of the hooded cloak. We had found the member of the Holy Maiden's entourage we were here to eliminate.

Before I could say anything he sat up straighter as he saw us approaching.

“Felix Tailor,” he said, his voice high and thin and reedy. It was not the voice of an old man but it did sound weathered nevertheless. “How long I've waited to take revenge on you.”

I resisted the urge to roll my eyes. “I don't even know who you are, bub.”

He jumped off of his throne and I immediately felt the urge to tell him to get back on it. He was so short it was hard to take him seriously. He could have rested his chin on a goblin's head without leaning down too much. Nevertheless he stalked towards us, shoving goblins out of the way until he finally stood in front of us and yanked back his hood.

His face was gaunt, his skin pale and sallow. A pair of bloodshot blue eyes stared out of it, the red only amplifying the startling blue of his irises. His hair was long and blond and stringy in a way I had only ever seen on dirt-poor peasant women who couldn't afford to maintain their golden locks. This man had never been handsome but maybe he had been pretty once, a long time ago.

“I was once a revered Chosen One,” he hissed at me. “Until you came along.”

“Doesn't narrow it down much,” I said.

“You ruined my life!” he shrieked.

“Still doesn't narrow it down enough,” I said.

His face twisted up in incandescent fury and he pulled a weapon out of a bag of holding. It was a mace, far too large for his small frame. Also, the weapon looked... broken. Like there was something missing from the mace's head. The sight of the weapon tickled something in the back of my mind.

“Wait, you're him, aren't you?” Alisha asked as she stepped up beside me.

I frowned. Wait. Was this...?

“So you finally remember me, Alisha!” he shrilled.

“Oh right,” I finally said. “You're that Chosen One!”

“What was your name again?” Alisha asked him.

His expression fell. In any other situation it would have been quite comical, his jaw falling open as he stared at her. “You don't even remember my name?”

“I mean...” Alisha began, “you might have told me once at the start but you always just wanted me to call you Chosen One. And by the time Felix beat that Dark Lord for you I really couldn't have cared less anymore.”

“What do you mean, he killed the Dark Lord? I struck the final blow! I'm a Hero!” He seemed genuinely offended.

“I mean, by technicality, sure, but you weren't even strong enough to pierce his hide without my help,” I said.

“And you almost broke my fingers doing it!”

“Oh, is this your old fiance?” Selene asked.

“She is still my fiance!” the former Chosen One shrieked as he held up his finger with the ring still on it.

In response Alisha held up both hands, showing off precisely two rings, both of which were magical items and therefore deliberately not worn on her ring fingers. After showing off her utter lack of an engagement ring she showed the former Chosen One her necklace and said: “Elves wear wedding necklaces, not rings, and Felix wears the counterpart to this one.”

He seethed silently.

“So, what was your name again?” she finally asked him.

“My name is Carl,” he finally said, utterly indignant.

Stunned silence followed. Even the orcs and goblins paused in their rutting.

It was so silent, in fact, that everyone heard it when Alisha leaned in close to me and muttered: “When I told you that Spot wasn't an imposing enough name for Hades' guard dog I had no idea how much worse things could have been.”

“Hero Carl doesn't sound that impressive,” I agreed. “Evil Overlord Carl doesn't, either.”

“Screw you guys!” Carl whined, waving his mace at us. The mace had once held a huge ruby in its head, one I'd removed before leaving the little twerp in the throne room of the Dark Lord we had killed together. The weapon looked decidedly less impressive without the gemstone.

“Alright Carl,” I said, doing my best not to break out into laughter at the name. “See, I get why you hate me. That makes perfect sense. I even understand why you'd be upset at Alisha, even if I'm pretty sure that one's on you.” He glared at me but didn't interrupt me. “So I get why you would try to rile up the Silvermoon clan against us, although you do have an ass-kicking coming just for that. What I don't get is how that leads to you helping an Outsider cult overrun Mount Olympus.”

He lowered the mace again and took a deep breath, his expression suggesting that he was relishing the opportunity to tell someone his sob story. “My god stopped speaking to me once the Dark Lord died. I woke up broken and alone in that throne room, my powers as a Chosen One gone. My fiance gone. My pride shattered. I knew I wanted revenge, knew I wanted to make you pay.”

This time it was my turn to just regard him. He could finish his little story. I would never see eye to eye with him. Even if I had had a shred of sympathy for the twerp before, that had gone out the window the moment I'd learned he'd taken up with Outsider cultists.

“But I needed to get stronger to beat you,” he continued. “And stronger I got. I trained my body and my mind. I took up with goblins, learning their grotesque language and earning their respect. Even still, it was not enough. I sought out more power.”

“And eventually you found your way to an Outsider cult,” I concluded.

“Do not interrupt me!” he hissed, then continued. “No, I didn't. I found ways to become stronger, ways to enhance my body and my magic past their limits. And eventually my god spoke to me again.”

“The god who Chose you?” Alisha asked.

“Yes,” he said, a mad leer creeping over his face. “I had become strong enough that he wanted me back. He gave me back my miracles and, more importantly, he gave me back my purpose. All I had to do was to fight alongside him and these Outsiders and in exchange he would help me with you. He would help me slay you,” he pointed at me, “and he would help me take you,” he pointed at Alisha, “back!”

“So, the god who Chose you is the traitor,” I concluded.

“Perhaps,” he said. “Or perhaps the traitors are the gods who abandoned me, who left me to wallow in my despair.”

My stomach twisted at his words. Even if our situations had been different, the experience of being abandoned had been the same. After a year of training, what if a god had decided to Choose me after all? Would I have spat on their offer? Or would I have leapt at the chance and been grateful for it? It wasn't hard to see myself being given the same chance Carl had received. If a god had reached out to me, would I have cared if they were a traitor to Olympus? I had hated the Olympians by that point. I might have leapt at the chance to put those arrogant pricks in their place and damned the consequences. Gods above, so long as the offer came from something less evil than an Outsider cult I might have leapt at the chance just a few weeks ago. Now, though...

“Which god Chose you, anyway?” Alisha asked. “I do recall you telling me but I honestly didn't care much. I didn't know anything about the Olympians back then."

“That is the question, isn't it?” he said with glee.

I started to think. Chosen Ones always received access to miracles, to help them on their journey. For every single Chosen One I had ever met at least one of the provided miracles had come from the god who had Chosen them. Selene had been given miracles by Heimdallr, Thor and Freya, with Freya having been the one who had Chosen her.

As for Carl... I thought back to the fight in that throne room. He had called on Zeus to strike his foes down with lightning but I sincerely doubted that Zeus was our traitor. Things would have been way worse if he was. What other miracle had... he... Oh fuck.

Before I could turn around or even shout a warning a red leather collar wrapped around my throat and its greasy magic sank into my skin.

“Kill your bitches,” Ares purred into my ear. “Make it hurt.”