Julien Gregg's Days of Atlantis 3: The Vampire Saga
Days of Atlantis: The Vampire Saga
by [Julien Gregg](mailto:juilengregg85@gmail.com?subject=Days of Atlantis on Nifty)
This is the story of Darias and Ren, two gods born of a human queen. They were born the princes of Atlantis and their lives were nearly destroyed by the Olympian God Zeus. After a lifetime of rape, torture and violence, Darias attacks Zeus and is cursed by Apollo. He can never see the sun again and must hunt humanity for their blood. The vampire is created. Learning of his brother's plight, Ren attacks Zeus, thinking that he is the God who cursed his brother. Ren will be cursed by Artemis. He will be ruled by the moon and be forced to change into a beast who hunts humanity for their flesh. The Forsaken is created. This is their story. Many of the Greek and Egyptian Gods will be featured in this story. I did research, but I felt it was necessary for this story to change certain things about the Gods. This is only a story so please don't try to correct me. This is the beginning of the Vampire Saga. This is how it all began. So just enjoy the ride. This story contains scenes depicting violence, death, murder, torture, rape, homosexuality, heterosexuality, homosexual sex, heterosexual sex and has a strong violent and sexual theme. If it is not legal in your place of residence for you to read this type of material, or if you are offended by this type of material please leave the site now. For all others the chapter links are below.
This story is a work of fiction its characters do not exist outside the story. Any resemblance to living people or places is strictly coincidence. This story is Copyright © 2015 Julien Gregg. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. This story contains material protected under International and Federal Copyright Laws and Treaties. Any unauthorized reprint or use of this material is prohibited. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system without express written permission from the author.
Chapter 2
The battle began as soon as Poseidon placed the soldiers behind the Greek soldiers that didn't drown in the tidal wave he'd created at the dock. The Greeks were dressed in golden armor with their hair plated behind them. They fought with swords, some on horseback and all lethal. The Atlantians fought with swords and tridents. None of them had horses. They cut down every man they encountered. They spread out in a wave of death against their enemy. Darias and Ren had battalions of men at their command, and it was clear that the twins themselves had been identified as key targets. Men came at them and died at the end of their swords or the points of their tridents.
Darias had no idea where Poseidon was now. The ground was quickly soaked with the blood of the battle. He learned something that his lessons with Phalon had never taught him. Battles were hot, sweaty things. They stank, and they were terrible to be a part of. He slammed the staff of his trident over the heads of so many men, crushing their skulls, stabbed them with his sword or skewered them with the three points of his trident. All because of a God who hated him and his brother. It was enough to drive him mad, but he held fast to his sanity as the Greeks retreated.
The soldiers set up tents in rows with sentries posted around them. Darias and Ren shared a tent, and they were both surprised to find Poseidon sitting at their small table when they reached their tent. They were both bone weary and ready to fall over. Poseidon looked them over from where he sat, clearly looking for injuries. Did he not realize that any injury they suffered would heal over night?
"You are well, my sons," he said as they came fully into the tent.
"We are well, Father," said Ren as he unbuckled his armor and let it fall from his chest. He put his sword and trident in their places and fell onto the bed.
"Do you not know that any injury we suffer will be healed over night?" Darias asked as he took off his own armor and put his weapons away. He sat in the other chair across from Poseidon.
"Literally one night?" he asked, raising his brows.
"Literally," said Ren from the bed.
"That must have been a gift from Hades," he said. "I knew he gave you immortality, so anything short of taking off your heads can't kill you. I just didn't know that he'd make it so that you healed so quickly."
"Well it was a blessing while we were under Savetor's thumb," said Darias as if it had been weeks or months since Savetor had last touched him.
"What exactly is this war supposed to accomplish?" Ren asked, sitting up. "I mean I get that we didn't want to fight the war on Atlantian soil, but if they weren't coming to conquer, then what was the goal?"
"To kill the two of you I'm sure," said Poseidon. "I don't know the workings of my brother's mind, but I do know that he fears and hates the two of you above all else. He created this war to kill you both."
"So it will never end," said Darias. "If we cannot be killed and their goal is to kill us then this war will go on forever."
"I should think that if you cull their soldier ranks the war would end," said Poseidon. "You cannot conquer Greece."
"We don't wish to conquer anything," said Darias. "We only want this war to end with our heads still on our shoulders. We have to get Savetor back to Atlantis for his hanging, and there's the matter of taking our rightful places as princes of Atlantis. He kept us from that all this time. We have to talk to the queen and tell her what her consort has done and make her understand that he needs to be put to death for his crimes."
"I think she'll accept that once she hears," said Ren. "She loves us as her own sons, Darias."
"She really believes that we're her sons?" Darias asked Poseidon.
"She does," he confirmed. "It was the only way to calm the people. No one can know that you are the sons of two Gods until you are crowned king."
"Well I need sleep," said Darias. He didn't want to talk about becoming king. She may not be his real mother, but he loved Amaila like a son loves his mother and talking about her death never sat well with him.
"I will keep an eye on you and make sure that no one gets past your guards," Poseidon said as he stood. "Sleep well, my sons. I love you."
Neither of them said anything to this. They'd both spent so much time hating Poseidon for abandoning them that it would take a long time before either of them could return that sentiment. They were both only just working on not hating the God. Darias would likely take longer than Ren. He'd hated all of the Gods for so long that it would be hard for him to rethink his entire life. There was so much to think about now that they knew the truth about who and what they were.
Darias didn't know what to think about being a God. Why had this been done? He'd been taught about the almost uprising of the people of Atlantis before his birth. They had wanted to overthrow Amaila and kill her because she was barren and couldn't produce an heir to the Laurel Throne. Poseidon had said that short of rendering her fertile, which he did not have the power to do, this was the only way. He supposed he could accept that, and he could even accept that Zeus had been angered by this and that was why he'd made it so that the Gods couldn't come to them. He supposed he'd hated them all for the wrong reasons, but could he change his heart just because he'd learned that Poseidon and the others hadn't turned their backs but been forced to stay away? What kind of God was Zeus if he would disregard them just because they had been the sons of an Egyptian Goddess?
Then there was the hints that Poseidon dropped constantly about what the Fates had said about them. He'd explained that there were three of the Fates, triplet daughters of Aphrodite. So they were demigods. He knew from his studies that certain demigods had this or that power. He'd studied up on Hercules and Perseus, but they were both great warriors. Their powers were based in strength and character. The three Fates had the power of sight. Though they were all three born blind they could see into the future and report back to the Gods about what they'd seen. Poseidon said that most of the time the answers they gave about the future came in riddles that were damned hard to decipher, but this time they'd come right out with the answers about who and what Darias and Ren would become. He wanted to know what they knew.
Yet weeks into the battle he still had not reached the cave of the Fates. He'd killed countless men, some of them had been no older than he was so they were actually children that the Greeks had trained and sent to die at the hands of Gods. It angered him and broke his heart to have to kill them, but he had no choice. They may have been children but they were lethal, trained by Duku and his men to kill any man who threatened Greece. Darias wanted to face this Duku on the battlefield. He was called Count Duku because they said that he could appear and disappear almost like the magic of a God. Darias wanted to face him so badly that he called out for his head at every battle he was a part of.
Ren thought he was going mad from the war, but Darias was anything but mad. He was determined to face the infamous Count Duku. He wanted to know for himself if the man deserved such a title. Was he touched by one of the Gods? Phalon had taught that there had been warriors who fought for one God or another and each of these had been touched or marked in some way by the God they fought for. Was Count Duku so marked? Was a God protecting him? What he really wanted to know was if a God was protecting Duku did that mean that he was as invincible as he and his brother?
Yet in battle after battle Darias's cry for the face off with Count Duku went unanswered. He slaughtered countless Greeks and still the infamous Count would not face him. He grew tired of his challenge remaining unmet. He called out to his father and asked that if Poseidon really wanted to help him why then did he not bring him Count Duku?
"He is Athena's warrior, Darias," said Poseidon when he'd asked.
"Your sister?" Darias asked incredulously.
"Yes," said Poseidon. "She is the protecting Goddess of Greece."
"So she is keeping Duku from me?" he asked.
"It would seem so, my son," Poseidon replied. "I cannot bring him to you without angering Athena. She is the Goddess of Battle and War. To anger her would be a very bad thing."
"So I'll go to her temple if I can cut my way to it and appeal to her as her nephew," Darias said. "She may protect this Count Duku, but I am her blood."
That's what he did. He fought and destroyed men to cut a path to the temple of Athena. He posted guards outside the temple because it was a rule of the Gods that no man or woman enter their temples armed. He stepped into the marble building, looking at the statue of his aunt in the center. There were all manner of weapons carved into the marble around her. Her priestesses looked at him as if judging if he were warrior enough to call on their Goddess. He smiled at them and something in his smile seemed to terrify them. They backed up two steps from him and looked down at the marble floor they stood on.
"Who are you to frighten my priestesses?" the statue said. He had to look twice to see that only the face of the statue had come to life.
"It is I," he said. "Your nephew, Darias, son of Poseidon and the Goddess Isis. I come to your temple with a request."
He had no idea if that would work or not. He'd visited her section of the Temple of the Gods in Atlantis with many a request that always went unanswered. Of course Poseidon had told him that was Zeus's doing. He supposed this time it might work, because if what Poseidon said was true she never heard his cries in her section of the Temple of the Gods.
The statue seemed to ripple. Then as he watched, the marble became flesh. She stepped off the pedestal and stood before him. Her long red hair fell in waves over her shoulders. She was dressed in white armor that looked like bone. She wore no face powders or greases to paint her face. She had clear blue eyes and a beautiful face. She smiled at him and a part of him wanted to do anything she asked. But he wasn't there to follow the Goddess of Battle and War like a blind fool. He was her nephew, a God in his own right if Poseidon was to be believed.
"I have often thought on what I would say to you when I was finally able to come to you, nephew," she said, looking him up and down. "You are so beautiful, and I am ashamed that I was unable to come to you before now. That it took my brother starting a war between the people of Greece and Atlantis for me to come to you is unforgivable. Tell me, nephew, what would you have of me?"
"I want to face Count Duku on the battlefield," he said simply.
"It is dangerous to come to my temple with requests for battles," she said as she walked around him. His eyes followed her and saw that her priestesses were all on their knees with their foreheads pressed to the floor. "It is especially dangerous to request a battle with my own personal warrior. You are a God, Darias. He is a mortal man. Why would you ask that I let you destroy my warrior?"
"So it is true then," he said, looking her in the eye as her equal though he really wasn't until his own God powers could manifest. "You have chosen a Greek warrior when your nephews are the princes of Atlantis."
"You say that as if you condemn me for passing over your people for the Greeks," she said. "But you should understand that the Greeks were my people long before my brother mated with the Egyptian Goddess to create you and your twin. Duku is four hundred years old, Darias. I have preserved him and kept him young so that he would be my champion until a better warrior was born. You are a better warrior than Duku, but you cannot be my warrior. You are my nephew, a God of Olympus. I cannot make you anything other than what you are."
"I want nothing to do with Olympus, Aunt," he said with disdain in his voice. "My father has told me that your brother, Zeus, the proclaimed King of the Gods hates me and my brother and started this war between our people and the Greeks to kill us both."
"It is true that Zeus fears you because of what Aphrodite's daughters saw in your future," she said. "We all touched you at birth and gave you what we could to save you from the fate her daughters saw in the future. Is it enough that I gave you the gift of battles and war?"
"You claim that it is because of your touch on my infant face that I am such a warrior?" he asked. "What of my lessons in the art of war?"
"Phalon is a great teacher as were his ancestors," she said. "Before Zeus prevented us from appearing at Atlantis his family were my chosen ones from your lands. He has taught you well, nephew, and for that I would honor his family again if I could. But it is true that you had what you needed from my touch even before Phalon taught you about the wars of the past."
"You will not grant my request?" he asked. "You would save your warrior from me, your nephew?"
"I must," she said. "If you meet Duku on the field of battle it will be because another God has gone against me. I do not wish you to kill my warrior."
"Then I have no use of you," he said darkly. "You have disappointed me my entire life. I am used to disappointment when it comes to the Gods. I bid you farewell, Aunt. I will not seek you out again."
He turned to leave as his heart broke. Poseidon had told him that the Gods of Olympus would have done anything for him and his brother if Zeus had not stopped them. Yet the first request he'd made of his aunt she had denied. It was better for his heart that she not answer at all when he called out to her. To have her answer and then deny him his request was more heartbreaking than her imposed silence had been for the last fourteen years.
"My heart breaks for you and your brother, Darias," she said to his back. "I am sorry that I must deny your first request that I could actually hear. Please do not hate me."
He said nothing as he left her temple. He knew that he would get nothing he needed from Athena. He accepted his sword and trident from his men and returned to the battle with a heavier heart than he'd ever known before. It showed on the battlefield. He was relentless as he cut down the Greek soldiers even as they tried to retreat. Was he trying to anger her? Perhaps he was. He didn't know his own heart in this state. Yet what he'd said in the temple was true. She protected a family of Greek soldiers when her own nephews were the princes of Atlantis. In his mind she was part of the enemy. He would never seek her out again and it hurt. It truly hurt.
He fought like he'd never fought before, killing any man who stepped in front of him. His heart broke as he killed, and he pored that emotion into his sword and trident, driving men back and still he slaughtered them. He began to earn a name on the field that he had no way of knowing was his destiny. To his enemies, and soon to his own men he was known as Darias, Prince of Atlantis and the Blood Warrior who fought for no God or Goddess. He reveled in his title at first, but Ren told him that it worried him for reasons his brother couldn't begin to explain. He himself had gained the name Ren the Just. Ren had stopped the killing of any man who was trying to flee. He didn't take from the men their gold or their possessions. He simply killed his opponents in battle and walked away. Darias would kill his opponents and any man that had stood with them. He would take their gold, their swords and their horses and divide them among his men. The Atlantian soldiers tended the horses well, but they loved him for the riches he gave them and still they called him Darias the Bloody.
"My son, you are changing even as I watch," Poseidon said one night as they sat around a fire to eat their flat dry bread and cheese. The apples had long since run out. Now they had stew made from vermin and the blood of the dying. Darias had refused to eat the stew at first, but when he'd finally broken down he found that he enjoyed the taste. It worried him that he clearly liked the taste of blood.
"I laid my heart at Athena's feet and made my request and she stomped on my heart and denied me," he said simply. "I decided then that I don't need the Gods or their protection. I fight because these people hate me and would kill me if given the chance. I eat the stew made from their blood and find it just that I drink the blood of my enemy. If this is the change you speak of then yes, I've changed."
"They call you Darias the Bloody," said Poseidon. "Does that not bother you?"
"A fitting name for the man the Gods have made me," he said as he threw his bread and cheese into the fire. "I am not my brother."
And that night he turned away three Gods when they appeared to him in his tent. Aphrodite appeared to him and beseeched him to change his course and listen to reason. He told her she was unwelcome in his tent. Athena made a plea that he not hate her when she appeared and he'd stared anger at her until she left. Poseidon came for his nightly talk and Darias turned him away. If Zeus wanted to keep the Gods from him he would help him do what he wanted. He'd long since decided that the Gods were good for nothing but disappointing, heartbreaking indifference. He found them petty and spiteful and he hated Zeus above them all.
The battles raged on and more and more men died on both sides. Darias said words over his dead soldiers, but he invoked the names of no Gods. Some thought it sacrilegious not to say a prayer in the name of their patron God, Poseidon. Many knew that he was the son of Poseidon and that made it worse in some men's eyes. Darias paid them no attention. He was known as a hard man and he was only barely sixteen years old by that time. Ren constantly told him not to let the war change him in the ways he feared it had. Darias couldn't make his brother understand that it wasn't the war itself that had changed him but the Gods and their indifference to his needs.
He stood and watched each night as Savetor was whipped. Ren had long since lost the stomach for such things. He continued to have him raped by the soldiers, and he laughed in his face when the man begged for mercy. He'd stopped begging for mercy after the first six months of his torture. Now he begged for death and Darias longed to grant his death. He and his brother had vowed that he would not be hanged until they returned to Atlantis however, and the war was far from over.
They would reach actual majority set forth by Atlantian law any day now. When that happened, their God powers were supposed to manifest. Darias often wondered what Zeus would do if the war lasted that long and suddenly there were two Gods of Atlantis on the battlefield instead of the mere immortal humans they now were. Would he face them on the battlefield when it happened? Or would he have to find his way to Olympus and bring the war to him?
"If you believe all that Poseidon has said about Zeus being responsible for all of this, then why do you deny Poseidon entrance to our tent when you are here?" Ren asked. "I still talk to him every night, but he senses you coming and leaves."
"The Gods have shown me that what I thought of them before Poseidon appeared to us and told us the truth about Zeus was accurate," Darias said. "They don't care about us, or at least they don't care as much as they try to make us believe."
"All of this because Athena wouldn't let you kill Duku?" Ren asked.
"I didn't ask to kill her warrior," Darias countered. "I only asked to face him in battle."
"What do you think will happen when you face him?" Ren asked. "He's merely human, right?"
"Yes, but she has given him a measure of the same immortality that we were blessed with," he said. "She told me herself that he's hundreds of years old and that she has kept him whole and young to be her chosen warrior. What I asked her was why she favored her human warrior over her nephew and fellow God. She had no answer for me. I told her that in denying my request she'd proven that she is of no use to me. In turn it showed me that none of the Gods are of use to me. They claim to love me, yet they won't help me."
"But Zeus is the one who did all of this, Darias," said his brother.
"Yes, and I await the day my powers manifest so that I can take the battle where it truly should be fought," said Darias. "If Zeus won't face us on the Greek battlefield when we become full Gods against his precious Greek humans then we'll take this battle to Olympus and force him to face us."
"That could happen any day," Ren said. "I have long since grown weary of this war. We're killing these people for nothing more than Zeus's hatred of us. It is not their fault that they are his chosen people."
"No it is not," agreed Darias. "Yet if we lay down our weapons and call for peace that will not stop them. They are driven by Zeus to kill us. For a time yet, they could actually kill us by taking our heads, brother. Will you not fight for your survival until the day when we are past that danger?"
"I just want to go home," said Ren. "I long for the day when I can sit and play Stones with Rafael again and listen to Phalon talk of their family."
"We have no home, brother," Darias said evenly. "We are not Atlantian. We were born of Gods. Yet we are unwelcome in their pantheon. Their very King wants us dead."
"What of Isis?" Ren asked. "She is our mother and we agreed that we wouldn't call out to her while we are at war with Greece. Will you not give her the chance to love us when this is over?"
"I will go to Egypt and give her and our brother the chance to be better than the Gods we know," Darias said. "But I fear that they will fail us the same way the others have always failed us. All of the years they've neglected us can't be just Zeus's doing. He has no control over the Egyptian pantheon."
"But Poseidon said that Zeus did something to keep all of the Gods from going to Atlantis," Ren argued.
"Yes, but does Zeus have the power to stop Gods of another pantheon?" asked Darias. "Does he have the power to stop the Mother of Creation?"
"All of this is happening because of words spoken by Aphrodite's daughters," reminded Ren. "Should we not go to them and hear these words for ourselves?"
"I don't believe that they are always right, brother," Darias said. "I will go to them if we can find their cave, and I will ask them to tell us what they told Zeus that has made him hate us so much. I cannot promise to believe what they say, for I do not believe that a demigod has any real vision when it comes to what has yet come to pass."
"But they're the Fates," Ren argued. "Their very power as demigods lets them see the future, Darias."
"Who is to say that they don't tell what they want and keep the truth to themselves?" Darias demanded, slamming his hand on the table. "Poseidon told us that they usually answer questions with riddles. They make them damned hard to decipher, right? So they answered Zeus with plain words. No trickery, he said. But what if it was trickery? What if they lied?"
"We don't even know what they said to Zeus," Ren pointed out, but his brother had a point.
"Then I suggest we find that damned cave and ask our cousins what they said to our uncle to make him start a war he had to know he could never win," Darias replied.
That ended their argument. Ren agreed that they needed to find the cave of the Fates and ask them what they told Zeus. If Darias was right about them giving only riddles to keep from telling the truth about what they saw or didn't see in the future then he was sure they would just lie to them. Did it matter? Zeus had started all of this. He'd made it so that the Gods couldn't come to them when they needed them. He'd pitted the men of Greece against them in a war designed to kill the two of them. He'd basically made their very names anathema to the Gods. There was something about this that Darias had been trying to make him see and until that moment he had refused to see it. This wasn't a war of men. It was a war of the Gods, and it was very personal.
They cut through men, finally together having joined their battalions of men. They cut a bloody path through the men of Greece, looking for that cave on the edge of a cliff where the Fates had made their home. The camp moved with them as they moved deeper and deeper into Greece. The people feared them, for they knew that when the twin princes of Atlantis came through their lands, death was left in their wake. Mothers of Greece used their names to frighten their children when they were bad and fathers of the children hid in secret rooms to discuss what could possibly be done about the scourge that was moving through the country.
Savetor was dragged along with them. He was fed only the stew which made him ill and forced to walk with his hands tied to the saddle of the horse that Darias rode. He cried out nearly constantly for mercy and death, but his cries continued to fall on deaf ears. He called out to the Gods and cried when they didn't answer. Darias was at least warmed by the fact that no God dared show their face in support of the man who had raped and tortured them for eight years. If they had he might have killed him in front of them, waiting for Atlantis be damned.
They moved through the land by day and slept in guarded tents by night. Darias was sorry for the state of his men so long from home and so long from comforts. There would be no home or comfort until the war was ended, and that would only happen when they faced Zeus as equal Gods. That could happen any day. They used a piece of slate they'd taken from one soldier or another and a white rock to mark the days, wondering how far past their sixteenth name day it would happen.
They were bone weary. They were hungry. They were angry and heartbroken. Most of all they were determined. Not many men of Greece came out to stand against them now. They'd learned fear. Darias was fine with that. He'd grown sick of the killing. Ren was happier than he'd been since the war began, for he absolutely hated killing these people for a war that was waged by a God they had no power to resist.
They found a large rock flat enough to be carved into a Stones board and played at night by the warming fire. It reminded them of Rafael, their surrogate brother. They discussed this lesson or that lesson which Phalon had taught them to keep him in their minds. They described the queen's features to each other to stave off the fear that they would forget the sight of her. They clung to each other at night as dreams of battles fought and battles of the future plagued them. It was a harrowing existence, but the prize was the cave. They wouldn't rest until they found it.
They had word from messengers that the war was still being fought closer to the shores, yet no one came for them. No men, no soldiers and no Gods. They kept moving, asking frightened villagers for directions to the cave and promising to leave them in peace if they would only give them the information they'd asked for. It was heartbreaking to see the fear in their eyes as they spoke to them, but they needed to find the cave. If they could talk to the Fates, they would know why Zeus had done all that he had done.
As the days wore on they continued to search for the cave of the Fates. The battles finally reached them. It seemed that Zeus was going to give killing them one last go. They were waiting for the day of their assension and with it their true God power given immortality. No human would ever be able to kill them once they reached that day. The men came at them in droves. Darias fought with every ounce of his training and strength. The ground that had been so green as the sun touched the sky was now covered in the dead and dying. The green grass painted red with the blood of the wounded.
Then suddenly lightning began to strike the opposing soldiers. So many of them were incinerated until they were nothing but ash from the lightning. Darias and Ren knew what was happening. This was Poseidon. He'd decided to fight in the war even though Darias would have nothing to do with him. They fought and danced out of the path of their father's lightning, listening to the frightened thoughts of their opponents. They fought from sun up to sun down and then finally the fighting died out. The lightning stopped striking and they returned to their tents exhausted from the day's fighting.
Darias cursed out loud when he entered their tent and found Gods waiting for him. He knew all of them but one. Poseidon, Aphrodite, Athena, Hades, Hared and another that they didn't know were standing inside the tent. There was so little room left for them to come inside. Darias looked at them all and shook his head. Would they not learn?
"What are you all doing here?" he demanded.
"We've come to end this war," said Herad. "We are your family and we want this ended."
"Where were you when we were seven?" he demanded, screaming in their faces. "You want to help now, but where were you when we were being tortured? Poseidon tells us that Zeus made it impossible for you to come to Atlantis, but Aphrodite gave Savetor boils every night. If she could do that then why couldn't any of you help us in a more direct way? Where were you?"
"My son," said Poseidon, trying to stop his screaming.
"Don't call me that," he screamed at him. "I am Darias, Prince of Atlantis. I'm no God meat. None of you came to our aid when we needed you the most. Since you've appeared to us it has been one disappointment after another. I begged and pleaded for your help when I was younger. I made tributes to you all with my own hands, said prayers in your temples and cried for your help. Where were you?"
"Darias," said Ren, putting a hand on his shoulder.
"No!" he screamed, shaking out from under his brother's hand. "You can forgive them if you want, but I won't. I will never forgive them for allowing the lives we lived. They blame Zeus, and he is guilty, but so are they."
He left the tent cursing and shaking. How dare they show up and try to end the war after all the times they'd needed them and no one had come to help? He couldn't believe the nerve of them. They were Gods for crying out loud. Zeus be damned, they could have helped them. Now they wanted to help when they were just days away from being one of them. They wouldn't need their help in a few days. Their attempt to help had come too little too late.
He went to Falion's tent. The man was standing outside his tent like so many of the other soldiers were standing outside theirs. They'd no doubt heard him screaming at the Gods. He stood before his battle teacher with his head held high. Savetor's screams echoed through the night around him as he was whipped. He couldn't speak for fear that he'd explode all over again. He took a moment to collect himself and then sighed.
"I ask for a place to lay my head, Falion," he said.
"Of course, Your Highness," said Falion, stepping away from the tent flap. "My tent is your tent. Anything for my Prince."
"I'll sleep on the floor," he said. "I won't take up much room."
"Nonsense, Your Highness," said Falion. "My tent mate died three nights ago. His bed is empty. You will sleep there. Can I get you some stew?"
"No thank you, Falion," he said as he took off his armor and put his weapons away. He fell upon the cot and was asleep before his head hit the pillow.
He was the talk of the camp the next day. He didn't care. It was the thoughts of the soldiers that worried him. They'd all started out thinking that they'd been saddled with the two princes and would end up having to save them and die for them when they weren't worth it. That was proof that Savetor had succeeded in making them seem stupid and worthless. Yet as the war had waged on their thoughts and opinions had changed. Now these men were proud to fight for them. They still thought of him as Darias the Bloody but they wanted to fight for him. They wanted to be on his side. They wanted him to win this war though not many of them really understood what the war was about. Did they expect that they would conquer Greece? Did they expect that they would take all of the riches of the country? Well the last he would grant them. They were his people after all. He may not have been born an Atlantian, but these were his men, his soldiers, his people.
The story of what Savetor had done to them for eight years had spread through the soldiers. Savetor was the most hated man in the camp now. More guards had been posted at his tent both to keep him in and to keep soldiers from killing him. Darias put Savetor out of his mind as an all new battle began around him. Where the enemy soldiers had come from he had no clue. He just waded into the fight, killing men as he moved. He found his brother and they stood back to back with their tridents, stabbing flesh over and over again. Then something drew Darias's attention to the hill beyond them. He saw him then. There on the top of the hill stood Zeus, the King of the Gods. So Zeus had decided to join the fight.
Then another miraculous thing happened. The sky opened and funnel clouds struck the earth, sweeping enemy soldiers away. Zeus extended his hand and the ground exploded in front of Darias. When the dust cleared he smiled at Zeus and killed two more Greek soldiers. Lightning began to strike again, but something else happened that stopped Darias cold. The dead rose, took up their swords and turned on the Greek soldiers! Ren cried out behind him and he knew his brother was seeing the same thing. Then a dark haired woman more beautiful than any human he'd ever seen in his life was standing before him. She smiled at him and reached out to touch his face.
"My son," she said. "I'm so sorry we're late. I see Zeus is trying to kill you, but your brother has turned his dead against him. You will not perish this day. I will protect you the way I promised before Set and Zeus made it impossible. I have finally come. I only wish that you and your brother had called me before this day. You are so close to being one of us, but until that day Zeus could easily kill you."
"Isis," he breathed and fell into her arms.
"Hush, my son," she said as she stroked his hair. "I know what has befallen you and your brother at the hands of the man who was supposed to protect you. This too is the fault of Zeus. I can't undo the past, but I can end this war for you and keep you safe."
The dead fought while the living Atlantian soldiers watched in horror. They sliced through the enemy soldiers with a mind numbing precision. Then he saw Ra standing in the center of them with his arms outstretched. He was calling out to the dead and they were responding. His brother was beautiful as he stood there, naked to the waist. He wore a brilliant white skirt with golden Egyptian symbols embroidered around the hem. His feet rested on sandals that laced up his legs to his knees. He had a staff in one hand, a bright golden staff that ended in a serpent's head.
"Die," he cried out. "All who have come against my brothers I am your death!"
It was horrible to behold. The destruction was so quick and so bloody. More blood was shed in the next hour than Darias had shed in the whole two years of the war. Ren stood at his side to watch the devastation with him. Isis stood behind them with her hands on their shoulders. She looked back to the hill where Zeus stood and shook her head. Then her voice sang out loud and clear.
"I see you, Zeus, King of the Olympian Gods," she cried. "Hear me. I am Isis, Mother of Creation. You have stoked my wrath in your actions against my beloved sons. This will cease. I will destroy everything you hold dear to save them. End this and I won't be forced to deal with you."
In one moment Zeus flashed off the hilltop and all of the enemy soldiers flashed away with him until there were only the dead and Atlantian soldiers with Ra standing in the center of the ring of them. The dead suddenly lay down upon the earth as Ra turned to face them with a radiant smile on his face. His midnight hair was plated down his back. It reached the top of his hips. His eyes were ringed with dark paint.
"My brothers," he called out to them. "I have come!"
Darias stood there in shock as he beheld Ra. Ren stood beside him in equal measures of shock as Isis walked around them. She looked the dead over and shook her head. So much death, and it was all Zeus's fault. Darias wanted Zeus dead for this. He vowed he would see the God dead if it was the last thing he did. Could a God kill another God?
"Of course we can kill each other," Isis said as if she'd read his thoughts. "It is a dangerous task you seek to take up, my son. You will likely fail, but I will keep you safe in your endeavor if your heart will not quiet without this vengeance."
Then the Gods of Olympus came to stand before them. Isis walked down the line of them as Ra came to her side. Hared, Aphrodite, Athena, Hades and the God that he hadn't known, Hermes stood there to look at them. Poseidon stood a bit further from them, but he was watching Isis. Darias looked at his mother and waited for her to speak.
"You Gods of Olympus have failed my sons," she said. "You who call them family have failed to protect them. The only one among you to do anything was the beautiful Goddess of Love. You others who made such promises of protection the day my sons were born have failed them most completely. I would know the why of it."
"We were forbidden," said Hared. "Zeus is a powerful God."
"You were forbidden," said Isis as she walked in front of them. "You failed. My sons were not protected, and all that the Fates had warned has come to pass. All but what will surely come after tomorrow when their powers manifest. Will Zeus deny them Atlantis?"
"I have seceded my power from Atlantis and passed it to Poseidon," said Zeus as he flashed before her.
"You," she said, narrowing her eyes. "I should destroy you for what you have made sure my sons would suffer. You did all of this out of fear. What King of any Gods would do such things because he fears infants?"
"They will seek to destroy me," he said.
"Yes," she said and threw her head back and laughed. "They will come to Olympus, and your head will be what they seek. You made it so. Reap what you've sown, Zeus. Understand me. This war is over. You will leave my sons alone now or I will destroy every Olympian God in existence. Am I in any way unclear?"
"I want their word," he said, but she interrupted him.
"My sons owe you nothing," she said. "You will have nothing from them. You are no longer dealing with Darias and Ren. You are dealing with me."
With that she flashed them all back to Atlantis. The soldiers, Darias, Ren, Savetor and all of the Gods. They stood in the Courtyard of the Sun. Phalon and Rafael came out of their home to see them all standing there in the courtyard. Over two thousand soldiers had gone to Greece. Only four hundred had returned. It had been a bloody war, and it had been for nothing.
They heard the sound of destruction coming from outside the palace walls. Darias knew what he was hearing. The Temple of the Gods was collapsing. Isis was destroying it. He only hoped that the priests and priestesses had escaped before it came down. Had she left Poseidon's temple? He would know soon enough. That she had destroyed the Temple of the Gods was understandable.
"What have you done?" Zeus demanded. His chiseled features hardened as he looked down upon her.
"I have destroyed the temples for your Gods," she said. "There is only one God of Atlantis today. His name is Poseidon. Only his temple still stands. You made sure that no God other than yourself could come to Atlantis. I will now make sure that only the Gods of Atlantis will be able to come here. Be gone ye Gods of Greece!"
Then the Olympian Gods were gone from Atlantis. Isis had forced them out. She'd said they could never return, and Darias hoped she'd made it so that they couldn't. He had things to deal with now that they were back in Atlantis. Savetor had to be hanged which meant he had to tell his mother about what he'd done. Then he caught himself. He had to tell the queen. She wasn't his mother.
"Be cautious for a little while longer, Darias," Isis said as she came to stand in front of him. "Queen Amaila must believe that you are her sons until the day she dies."
"She did give birth to us," said Ren as he looked at Darias.
"That she did," he agreed.
They made their way through the courtyard with Savetor in chains behind them. They made quite a spectacle. Darias was only mildly irritated to find that Poseidon was with their party as it advanced on the palace. Savetor was taken to the scold to await his hanging, and Darias, Ren, Isis, Ra, Poseidon and the guards went up to the queen's suite of rooms. They got a shock when they entered the rooms. Queen Amaila was standing at the window, gazing out at the ocean.
"So you have returned from the war," she said when she turned and found them all standing there.
"Yes, Mother," said Darias. "We have returned."
"I have been worried sick," she said. "Tomorrow you will take your place as the Crowned Prince of Atlantis. You, Ren, will also be crowned. Today we have other business. I assume you know that Savetor has been drugging me to keep me ill so that he could rule Atlantis in my place."
"We will add that to the list of his crimes," Darias said. "He is in the scold, awaiting his execution for treason."
"Treason?" she asked. "What has he done?"
"He has raped us every night for eight years, beat us with his fists and anything he could pick up, dragged us through the palace naked for all to see, had us whipped and branded in the scold. For these things he was to be hanged. Now for what he's done to you he is to be beheaded."
"You are the father of my sons," Amaila said, looking up at Poseidon. "Where were you when they were suffering all of this?"
"Zeus prevented any God from coming to Atlantis shortly after the twins were born," he said. "I have renounced Olympus. I am now the only God of Atlantis."
"I was told the Temple of the Gods has collapsed," she said. "Your doing?"
"Mine," said Isis as she stepped forward.
"And who are you?" Amaila demanded, holding her head high, ever the regal queen.
"I am Isis, Goddess of Egypt and Mother of Creation," said Isis.
"Are you now to be a Goddess of Atlantis?" asked Amaila as if she expected her to say yes.
"That is up to Poseidon," she said. "If he wishes to share Atlantis with myself and my son, then yes."
"And what would Set say about this?" asked Poseidon.
"Set has no say in this matter," Isis said. "If you decide to share Atlantis with us we will become the Goddess and God of Atlantis. You are the God of the Sea and Storms. I am the Goddess of Creation. Ra is the God of the Sun and Lord of the Dead."
"Then you are now the Atlantian Goddess of Creation, and the Atlantian God of the Sun and Lord of the Dead," Poseidon said.
Amaila bowed her head to Poseidon before she turned first to Isis and said, "All Hail Isis, Goddess of Atlantis." She turned to Ra and said, "All Hail Ra, God of Atlantis."
They followed suit and then the procession made its way to the scold where Savetor waited. They stepped inside and fanned out around the room. Savetor was chained to the wall. He was naked and his body was riddled with lashes from the whip. He shivered at the sight of them all and nearly gasped at the sight of Amaila standing among them.
"Savetor," Darias said in a clear voice as he stood straighter and looked the man in the eye. "You have been convicted of treason for your actions against the crown. You will be dragged through the streets of Atlantis to the execution yard where your head will be cut from your body and you will die. You have two days to make your peace with the Gods of Atlantis."
He screamed in agony as the lash marks from all of his nightly whippings suddenly appeared on his skin. The lash marks bled and festered. He twisted his head from side to side in agony as the pain of every night of his torture was revisited upon him. Darias and Ren were shocked. He, like them healed any injury over night. They wondered what the purpose of this was and which of the Gods had done it.
"I have lifted his ability to heal over night," said Isis. "He should feel every night of his torture for what he has done to you. I am a Goddess of Atlantis, and I say he will have no peace with me."
"I am a God of Atlantis," said Poseidon. "I say he will have no peace with me."
"I am a God of Atlantis," said Ra. "I say he will have no peace with me in life, and he will find his soul's destruction in death."
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