Then Telamon and Atalanta came sprinting from behind her and Heracles. Telamon stooped to retrieve his sword mid-run and, like ants climbing the roots of a tree, they scurried up the creature’s spiny legs.
Danae cast her threads wide this time, creating a shimmering web through the air, as she willed the wind to form a net and drag the sea-monster to the earth. It was a colossal effort to keep it restrained, every part of her aching. She knew she should try again to achieve Gaiasight, but there was no time.
Atop the beast, Atalanta and Telamon clung on, driving their blades beneath the rim of its shell.
Then a blast of rocks smacked into Danae’s back. She staggered, losing her control of the life-thread net.
By the lake, Poseidon had freed himself from his earth prison, and he and Metis faced each other across the water, hurling trees and chunks of the island at each other, scattering stones and earth through the air.
Freed and furious, Skolopendra tossed Atalanta and Telamon from its back. It rose up on its many legs, then thudded its body into the shallows, causing a quake that sent them all tumbling to the ground.
Danae furiously rubbed the sand from her eyes and squinted through her tears as the beast lowered its grotesque head towards the prone form of Atalanta lying on a bed of sun-crisped seaweed.
It might have been blinded, but it could still smell.
‘No!’ Danae screamed as its bone jaws closed around the warrior.
Without pausing to attempt Gaiasight, Danae summoned her life-threads and drilled a concentrated blast of air towards the belly of the beast, trying to break through its shell. Skolopendra roared, then flung Danae aside with a flick of one of its tree-length legs. Telamon was valiantly still trying to scale another of the monster’s limbs, using his sword to drag himself up between the ridges of shell. Heracles had mercifully retreated to crouch behind the boat, watching his friends battle with wide, haunted eyes.
The sea-monster swung its head towards Danae as she gathered her threads for another attack, then it launched itself at her. She braced for impact. But mid-strike, it stopped and began swaying. Telamon, who had been tossed into the shallows, splashed away as Skolopendra jerked wildly, then let out a deep, bone-rattling shriek and crashed down onto the sand. It lay for a moment, legs twitching, then grew still.
Six agonizing heartbeats later, the bone jaws shuddered apart. Atalanta emerged, sword drawn, the blade drenched in blue blood.
Telamon sagged back in the water. ‘Thank the gods –’ He caught himself. ‘You know what I mean.’
Danae sprinted towards the warrior, throwing her arms around her. She could feel Atalanta’s pulse beating through her silver breastplate.
They pulled apart, and somehow the words Danae wished to say became: ‘You stink.’
Atalanta wiped her face. ‘I know.’
There was another earth-rumbling crash, and Danae looked back towards the lake, where Metis and Poseidon were ripping the island apart.
‘The power’s in his trident,’ Danae murmured. She looked back at Atalanta. ‘I think I know how to beat him.’
The warrior’s lip curled, the heat of battle blazing in her eyes. ‘Let’s go slay a god.’
Danae, Telamon and Atalanta left Heracles by the boat and sprinted inland. Metis and Poseidon’s battle had moved away from the lake, towards the cliffs on the far side of the island. Metis staggered on the wave-sprayed rocks as the sea crashed below, her broken arm hanging at her side. She’d had no time to heal herself. Poseidon whipped a tempest around the prongs of his trident and hurled it at her, until she became nothing but a dark blur in the centre of the maelstrom.
Danae’s eyes stretched wide in horror; Metis was going to die if she didn’t intervene. But she was weakening. It was one thing achieving the calm of Gaiasight in solitude, but in battle her pounding heart and racing blood too often betrayed her. She delved deep inside herself, trying to imagine the flow of her river.
Beside her, Atalanta slung the bow from across her back and nocked a blood-soaked arrow. The shot pierced Poseidon through the cheek, and he roared, turning on them with eyes of molten fury. The tempest around Metis dissipated, and she gasped, struggling to heave her bruised body off the rocks.
Danae ran, launching herself towards Poseidon, with Telamon and Atalanta beside her. The Olympian ripped the arrow from his face and flicked his trident. A hard wall of air slammed into Danae, and she hit the ground, gasping.
Lights bursting across her vision, she pushed herself to her feet, as a dank mist billowed across the island. It was Metis: battered and bloody, her good arm raised as she summoned the fog from the sea. It swallowed them all in a cocoon of damp grey air, robbing their sight.
Arms outstretched, Danae stumbled forward, then her foot caught on something.
She crouched down and felt a mound of stones.
Through the cries of battle and clash of metal and rock, she heard something else. A melody sung by the wind, cawed by the gulls and echoed in the earth.
She drew a long, deep breath, then let go. For a moment, she was terrified. Then everything seeped away. She was the river, her blood its racing current; she was the sea; she was every body of ocean pooled across the earth.
She was all of creation.
Through the mist glowed the tapestry of life. She could see the shining form of Metis, and the swirl of her life-threads pouring into the air. She could see Atalanta and Telamon, the shimmering shape of their lives in harmony with the blades of grass beneath their feet. She could see Poseidon, his body glowing brighter than the rest, and another light that eclipsed all others: his trident. It burned like a white-hot flame, and Danae now understood why it held so much power.
