Vol.5 Ch.19.2 – The Other Traitor II

The worst part about Bres' little speech was that I couldn't really fault his reasoning. He was a prick, yes, but when I was truly honest we'd never really given him a chance. He was a god of the harvest and the harvests he granted were bigger than what that psychotic bitch Demeter handed out.

The part about the Fomorians and their raids I couldn't say anything about. Fomorian raids were rare occurrences but they were common enough to be a credible threat so it was easy to dismiss his claims as bullshit but, at the same time, I didn't know how frequent these raids had been before Bres' marriage to Brigid. For all I knew the frequency had gone down by an order of magnitude. Even more, if they abducted women as breeding stock that implied that the Fomorians, like goblins, required the females of other races to reproduce. They didn't hunt mortals for sport, they hunted them because it was necessary for them to do so.

If the Fomorians were like goblins I would have had little sympathy for them, being evil little shits with no sense of compassion or goodness in them, but the sheer fact that Bres could hold a polite conversation with us proved that at least some Fomorians weren't evil creatures that only existed to torment thinking beings.

Maybe we had judged the Fomorians wrong all this time. Maybe the women they abducted were actually happy, I didn't know. I did know that followers of the Aesir used to raid and pillage and steal women before the Trismegistian kingdom was founded and many of the women they used to abduct had been happy in their new homes. For all I knew the Fomorians were the same in that regard. It didn't make them good or nice but it did mean they weren't the scum I had always assumed them to be.

And even while I had always hated Fomorians I had never once felt the taint of the Black Goat on them but even so the rumors continued to circulate.

Was Bres right? Had we pushed a being that, while not morally good, had at least been trying to be benevolent despite his conflicting natures, into siding with the very beings we despised? Or had he always been a scumbag who was throwing himself a pity party to justify siding with the Outsiders?

I could see myself falling into the same trap as him. If anyone – anyone – other than an insane Outsider cult had overrun Olympus I would have told Athena to go fuck herself if she'd asked for our help. Because in the end, the same disregard us mortals had given Bres his whole life, the gods had given me for all of mine.

“While I do find this discussion fascinating, I do feel the need to remind everyone of what Bres is resting his foot on,” Hermes said, his voice completely deadpan.

I had genuinely forgotten he was there. Hermes was lying on the ground of the stone plateau, sans legs, pinned to the ground by Bres' massive sandaled foot, his arms limp by his side and so covered in bruises I had to assume that they would bend the wrong way if he were to raise them.

“Yeah, about that,” I said. “Mind letting Hermes go? We're having such a civil discussion right now.”

“I don't think I will,” Bres said. “The moment I let him go someone plunges a dagger into his heart and then this annoying little insect will be free to buzz around again.”

“And yet, if we were to start fighting it would only be a matter of time before you have to move away from him,” I countered.

“Lugh once fought a battle tied to a tree because his guts would fall out if he moved,” Bres said. “I think I can handle you while standing here.”

“So you're intent on this path?” I asked. “Brigid can't detect any Outsider taint on you so clearly you aren't too far gone yet.”

He narrowed his eyes at me. “Now how would you know...” His voice trailed off as his gaze wandered behind me to Alisha, whose allegiance was clear to see for anyone who knew what the stylized flame design of her diadem meant. “Ah fuck. I'd wanted to keep the charade going for a while longer.”

“Did you think the rest of us wouldn't tell Brigid what her husband was up to?” Aphrodite asked.

Bres paused, clearly at a loss. And I couldn't blame him. The Holy Maiden's plan had apparently been to starve the Olympians of worship and thereby kill them, thus getting rid of all potential witnesses. But even if he killed everyone present, Alisha would damn well make sure news of Bres' betrayal reached Brigid. And so, by revealing himself to us he had effectively revealed himself to the whole world.

“It's not too late, you know?” I said. “You haven't done anything truly unforgivable yet. Cease this and fight the Holy Maiden with us.” And it was a testament to just how glibly the gods took to amputation and murder that not even the mutilated Hermes disputed my point. As far as I knew he hadn't done anything too horrible yet, especially if Brigid couldn't detect any Outsider taint in him.

But in response to my declaration he started chuckling. “Not too late?” he asked, utter revulsion in his voice. “So if I just say I'm sorry I can go back to the way things used to be?” He stared at me, then let his gaze wander to all the gods present. “We spent centuries getting blamed for shit we didn't do. And if I stop now we get to go back to precisely that? We get to go back to me and my kin being the scapegoat of the entire cosmos? This time with the added weight of this to lend credence to all the accusations?”

I faltered. He wasn't wrong. How could I hope to erase centuries of resentment with an outstretched hand?

“But,” he said, continuing, “now that the cat's out of the bag I suppose there's no more need to play coy.”

He reached for the simply white tunic he wore and ripped it off, revealing a fairly muscular chest, pale as the belly of a fish but with strange tattoos on them. They looked disconcerting. Not only had I never seen these pattern before, not only did they look nothing like any language I'd ever seen, not even the runes the dungeon used, but they seemed to move when I wasn't looking at them. The marks seemed to crawl around the edges of my vision and the more I stared at them the more I could taste the color purple. And clearly the effects the marks had were muted on me because Melinoe and Hestia began retching behind me.

“You see,” he said, “Outsider magic is far more versatile than the magic of this world. Not only can a talented Outsider sorcerer bless people, they can also seal the blessing away so that mages of this world cannot detect them.”

“Yeah,” I said, fighting my own nausea, “except anyone who looks at this shit knows where you got those marks.”

“Then it's a good thing my blushing bride hasn't touched me in centuries,” Bres said with a smirk. “Ironic, isn't it? She distrusted me so much that she never even caught the betrayal she's been watching for.”

A few of his marks started burning with a dark purple flame, slowly vanishing from his flesh. By the time the marks were gone Alisha and Selene started retching. Apparently all the evil that should have exuded off him the last few months had hit them all at once.

“Now then,” he said, his voice now reverberating with power. “Let us begin the festivities. Devour, Tides of War!”

Instantly a giant maelstrom of water, ten feet tall, started swirling around the entire plateau, hemming us in. But Bres wasn't done yet.

“Divine Decree,” he intoned and the eyes of the cultists and Fomorians behind him started to glow red. “Fight to your last!”

And finally he raised his sword.

“Howl, Regalia of Eochaid!” A red glow started swirling around his blade and the hand he held it in. I didn't feel any immediate menace from the blade the way I did when Helios Edge was wreathed in fire but whatever incantation that was, I was sure it would be bad.

And then he wound up and hurled the sword at Alisha.

I threw myself at the little elf, tossing us both to the ground and out of the sword's trajectory. Gods above but he had thrown that massive slab of coppery metal the way I did my throwing knives.

“You alright?” I asked her and Alisha gave me a terse nod before my instincts screamed another warning. I jumped up to see where Bres had tossed the sword and saw, to my horror, the sword hovering in the air, winding up for a horizontal slash that would decapitate our entire back line.

Before I could even shout a warning, however, three sapphire swords snapped into existence and blocked the sword's slash, though Bres' sword did manage to shatter two of the blades before it was stopped.

Gods, now I understood how he'd managed to hit Hermes. That was a nasty trick.

“Catch that sword!” I called out and Yume launched herself at the blade. Before she could grab hold of it, however, the blade zipped back to Bres and I had to slam myself into Albrecht to make sure it didn't take off one of his arms.

This was bad. Bres had already proven to us that he was physically strong enough to launch Ares hundreds of yards in a single punch and now he demonstrated some disconcerting psychic abilities with his sword. He was the perfect combination of dangerous up close and terrifying at range. The only way to beat him would be to overwhelm him with more targets than he could focus on. Except he clearly knew that as well.

Just as I was about to formulate a plan of attack his remaining force decided to get involved, charging at us as they let out a deafening war cry. Ah shit.

I thought furiously. We'd already seen how strong these goat— Fomorians were when buffed by Bres' power so we would need to hold them off with several people, even if they weren't immune to magic this time around. Bres' sword clearly needed multiple people to defend against and approaching him alone was probably suicide for anyone except Poseidon. And there was no way the water miracle he'd cast would do nothing but hem us in. We needed versatility everywhere.

“Poseidon, we need you to keep Bres busy,” I said, trying my best to not phrase it as an order. “Hephaestus, Odysseus, Albrecht, hold off the grunts. Selene, Athena, keep the mages safe. Atalanta, get back here so we can fix that arm of yours. Anna, Yume, the three of us are taking care of that sword. Alisha, Hestia, Aphrodite, mow down the enemies.”

“And what should I do?” Artemis asked, sounding slightly upset that I hadn't mentioned her yet.

“I don't trust that water miracle,” I said, turning to look at her. “Make sure nothing happens to our mages.”

She searched my gaze, trying to figure out if I was genuine or patronizing, but when she found no trace of pity she gave a nod. She nocked an arrow but instead of aiming at our foes she kept herself in a ready stance, watching out for anything out of the ordinary.

**

My orders had been well placed.

Albrecht, Odysseus and Hephaestus were only barely enough to stem the tide of monsters bearing down on us. The Fomorians fought with a ferocity I hadn't seen in Poseidon's tholos. The miracle Bres had cast on them had made them frenzied. And I had a feeling that he hadn't so much driven them mad as he had simply unleashed how mad they already were. These furious goat beasts were much closer to the tales I'd read of Fomorian raids than anything I'd experienced while fighting them.

And not only were the Fomorians mad with bloodlust, the cultists were just as bad. Half of the cultists looked like the ones we'd faced in the Temple of Zeus, hulking creatures consisting of goat parts and cankerous growths clad in clerical robes, while the other half looked more... refined. They didn't have any overt goat parts safe for their eyes and their hands glowed with dark magic. Their appearance made me think back to Wilhelm. He had said not all cultists were mounds of flesh, hadn't he? They also seemed much more proficient with Outsider magics than the ones that were more obviously mutated. Or rather, they might have been more proficient. While the dark glow around their hands did indicate a certain level of magical capability they were in just as much of a frenzy as the Fomorians were. Drool was running out the corners of their mouths and instead of launching eldritch projectiles they were using the magical glow around their hands to claw at their foes, leaving deep gashes in the heavy iron shield Hephaestus had pulled out to repel them. And even that was not enough, as a good chunk of the army swarmed past them to crash into Selene and Athena.

Selene and Athena I had hoped to hold back in case Bres tried anything else but instead they got bogged down in Bres' army as well, if not quite as badly as our first line of defense.

Poseidon was in fact able to hold his own against Bres, though clearly I had underestimated Bres' strength. For a moment I'd been confused, that a god everyone hated would be so powerful, but clearly the belief of the Fomorians in their god-king sustained him better than the belief of the mortals that hated him could have. It let him stand against one of the most worshiped of the Olympians with ease. Poseidon, even wielding his massive trident, could barely weather Bres' attacks. Not only had Bres drawn a second blade, much smaller than the one he'd launched at us but made of the same material and therefore likely capable of the same maneuvers, but every once in a while he used the large sword to strike at Poseidon's back, keeping him on his toes.

Anna, Yume and I were capable of holding off the large blade most of the time but the sheer fact that it took three people to handle that sword was proof of its effectiveness. Whenever Bres drew the sword back to strike at Poseidon I used the opportunity to thin out the Fomorians bearing down on Selene and Athena but those moments were short-lived.

Alisha, Hestia and Aphrodite did their best to thin the herd as much as they could without hitting any of us but it was slow going. Not that they couldn't hurt the Fomorians and the cultists. The issue was that it didn't seem to do anything. They were so mad with bloodlust they simply didn't care about their own injuries and only fell when they were too damaged to continue.

But the one I was most grateful for was Artemis. I hadn't been lying. I hadn't given her this task to keep her out of the action. Gods above, thanks to Selene I knew damn well that sheltering someone who had gone through something horrific was the last thing they needed and so I wouldn't inflict that on Artemis. No, I had genuinely been worried about that miracle. And for good reason.

Periodically the maelstrom of water disgorged creatures, beings made out of water that looked like a horrid combination of dog and moray eel and I knew, not just suspected but knew, that the beasts these water constructs were inspired by were the Fomorian equivalent to hunting hounds.

After she had killed the first of these water creatures with a well-placed arrow Artemis had made sure to catch my gaze and give me a firm nod.

Clearly our strategy was working. All we needed to do was see it through.